The Dark Star
by Sarah Kathleen
Summary: Adariel of Rivendell journeys to Lórien and on the way her only family in Middle-earth is killed. She returns to her home for the burial, only to have a man from her past threaten her life... and the life of a cold Marchwarden self-sworn to protect her.
1. Lothlórien

Author's Note: Hey all! I was in a very depressed mood when this was inspired. I'd just read something very, very sad, and a sad song was on my CD player, and... well, you know how ideas are.  
  
This isn't mine. Well, some of it is (the plot included, of course). You'll be able to tell the difference between mine and Tolkien's. Hopefully. But if you still insist on suing or anything like that, heh heh, you aren't getting much. Poor person-who-sues-me. Anyway, Carlee shall shut up now. Have fun!!  
  
*  
The Dark Star  
Part One:  
Lothlórien  
  
She could hardly breathe, but she knew it would have been better if she weren't breathing at all. The quiver on her back was empty, the bow strapped uselessly on her back; the string had been sliced by the same rusted blade that had caused her biggest wound. Her wounds were healing, but her sister's... Nurardion had done his best. Her brother could only do so much. It wasn't his fault that the Orcs had been unexpected. It also wasn't his fault that her twin, Aradalien, had been forced to leave her weapons behind. Not that she would have been able to use them, but all the same.  
  
Of course, she didn't know what happened to Aradalien, but that mattered not. What mattered was that she had probably been trampled by the feet of scores of Uruk-hai if she hadn't been killed before then. It mattered that her sister - her twin - had abandoned her, and that her dead brother was at the base of a lone dead tree, waiting for his deserting sister to return with help to bear him back to Rivendell for burial.  
  
Snow in Lothlórien was rare, but snow at its borders was not. The sleet pelted at her, slapping her face like accusing hands as she fought through the blizzard. The hood to her black cloak rested at her hairline, but no further. Her soggy dark hair was nearly frozen beneath the hood, and her breath came out in white puffs of steam, the breath of her black gelding the same. Her once dove gray hued gown was nearly black from the wet, and the skirt, particularly the hem, was mud splattered. Blood splattered her torso, skirt, and draped sleeves.  
  
She was no longer cold, but numb, and not just from the weather. Her once blue-violet eyes were lifeless and dull in grief, giving them a gray hint to their once vibrant color. They were red-rimmed from crying, and tears were hidden by the damp sleet on her cheeks.  
  
"I'm sorry, Gil-luin," she choked through tears to her black horse. "We should never have left Imladris."  
  
*  
  
Haldir of Lórien squinted through the mix of sleet and snow, which was swiftly turning to the latter, his eyes never leaving the borders. 'Outright ugly weather,' he thought. 'We've had two weeks of this, and no sign of relent. How long will it be before our enemies use this to their advantage?'  
  
"Two weeks of this accursed weather, one week out in it, and no let up," a voice from his left muttered bitterly. "How much more can we handle of this?"  
  
"We must handle it, Orophin," he murmured, refusing to let his frustration enter his voice. "Or would you like to have Orcs at your door?"  
  
"I said nothing about Orcs at my door," his younger brother protested. "But one would think that this weather would break within a week, but no-"  
  
"Would you hush?" Haldir demanded impatiently. "You'll be heard."  
  
"Stop it, both of you," Rúmil muttered, knowing that Orophin was fully capable yet not entirely willing to perform the duties of marchwarden, while Haldir threw his entire being into guarding Lórien from anything that came near.  
  
Haldir refused to reply, and instead narrowed his eyes further. "You see that as well, don't you?" he demanded of his brothers, but he knew the answer. He agilely jumped from his place in the tree and onto the ground, then reached back and pulled a white arrow from the quiver on his back. He crept forward as the wind died down and the last bit of harsh sleet fell and crouched at the forest's edge, waiting.  
  
*  
  
Gil-luin slowed from a walk to barely that as the wind began to die. The sleet stopped slapping her face, and the biggest snowflakes she'd ever seen began to fall. Soon the ground was decently covered, but through the snow and her blurred vision she saw a tree line. Great trees stood there, the beginning of a grand forest. She felt eyes from the tree line; someone was watching her. But she didn't bother to stop her horse. He seemed to know what he was doing. And at that moment she trusted her horse's judgment more than her own.  
  
Her head bowed, she hardly moved at all as the gelding plodded through the snow. Normally she would have rejoiced in the tiny ice-crystals, but she found it hard to rejoice in anything, anything at all. Nurardion and Aradalien were dead. And she had left them both back at the gate...  
  
*  
  
The lage dark spot, Haldir realized as it came close, was actually a rider on a horse. His vision of the figure was slightly deterred by the heavily falling snow. A rather pathetic looking pair they made, he decided. Both bent over in weariness and defeat. It looked as if neither cared what happened to them. He readied his arrow, notching it to the string as he watched the dark figure inch its way closer. In all actuality, though he either refused to acknowledge it or didn't realize it, he would have drawn the string by now, but something - something he didn't recognize if he even thought of it - held him back.  
  
Once again he narrowed his eyes at the figure, and he realized that the shape of it was feminine. Not only feminine, but Elven. Elves can nearly always identify other Elves. He stared for a moment. If this rider was Elven, they had every right to pass through Lórien. The fact that they may have been a woman was particularly daunting; he didn't want to kill a she-Elf who was merely seeking passage.  
  
Unconsciously his bow loosened, until the figured started coughing. The cough racked the frame of rider, and somehow brought him back to his senses. Haldir tightened his bow string.  
  
*  
  
She fought to haul in a sobbing breath, but the cold air made her lungs burn. She coughed violently. She looked up, and somehow felt that an arrow was trained on her. She didn't care. They could have shot her. They should have shot her. She deserved it. But the arrow never came.  
  
*  
  
The rider looked up, and Haldir knew that they knew he was there. But it was obvious that they didn't know where he was specifically. As the posture of the figure straightened, it also became obvious that the rider was female; her frame was too delicate to be anything but. And she was a clearly upset female; her eyes were red rimmed. She could very well have been attractive under her normal circumstances.  
  
Then again, he countered, she was Elven. The Elven race was naturally attractive. But she was different, another part of his mind protested. She was more than attractive, and he knew it.  
  
Haldir gritted his teeth and refused to acknowledge his inner battle. He watched as she wavered as she scanned the tree line.  
  
"I beg of you, whoever you are, shoot me," she said. Her voice was hardly above a whisper - Haldir could barely hear it and he was sure that his brothers didn't hear it at all - and hoarse. From crying? He couldn't tell. "My life is undeserved."  
  
She wavered again as Haldir lowered his weapon. The horse moaned for her as her eyes closed and she tumbled down into the snow.  
  
Haldir slid his arrow back into the quiver and stood. "Be quick, Haldir," he heard Rúmil caution. He nodded to show that he'd heard and made his way toward the she-Elf and her horse.  
  
Closer to her, he could see that she was too pale, too thin to be completely healthy. Her gown was wet, and nearly frozen. The thing crunched as he gathered her up in his arms; and he noticed that she was far too light. Darker stains on her gown could only be blood. A larger concentration of the dark substances was on her right shoulder where she must have been wounded.  
  
Elves didn't always need sustenance, nor were they as affected by the cold as Men. But this she-Elf had been neglected of food and warmth for too long for her blood to keep her from becoming too cold and too malnourished. The blood loss had most certainly not helped, either.  
  
He gripped the wet and freezing maiden tighter and whistled softly for the horse to follow. The gelding stared at him with a navy blue, silver-flecked gaze - which was highly odd for horses - then glanced at his mistress, back at him, then began to follow.  
  
Haldir made his way to the wood with the maiden hurriedly, wondering exactly how they would get her to Caras Galadhon. They would have to find another group to replace them on the western border, or at least one person to replace one of them.  
  
"What is it?" Orophin demanded as he entered the forest. Haldir looked up at him.  
  
"It is a she, and she is an Elf," he told him. Rúmil appeared beside his brother, looking down at them.  
  
"Do you know who she is?"  
  
"No, I do not," was Haldir's reply. "But I do know that she is severely malnourished, is nearly frozen, and wounded. I suggest we take her to the flet."  
  
"There is no one there to look after her. How do we know she isn't a servant of the Enemy?"  
  
That was a good point. And normally Haldir would have agreed in full, but some sort of strange protective sense fought his normalcy. "She is still an Elf," he countered irritatedly. "She deserves treatment."  
  
"Then you may watch over her," Rúmil snapped. "Take her to the flet, and send whoever may be there out to replace you."  
  
The idea of giving up his post was downright loathsome, but to all appearances Rúmil was in a bad mood, and clearly not wanting to have the maiden burden him. And while he could have fallen upon rank and ordered Rúmil to take her, it didn't seem right. He was his brother, after all. Therefore, Haldir was the only one left for the job; for all his good intentions, and Orophin really tried, somehow he didn't trust his younger brother with her. It didn't occur to him that he would have been uncomfortable with anyone but Haldir himself looking after her.  
  
"All right. I'll do my best with the replacement."  
  
"Oh, and is that her horse?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Then take it with you."  
  
*  
  
As she slowly sifted through darkness into wakefulness, she realized that she wasn't numb anymore. In fact, she was almost completely warm. She forced herself that last bit, and her eyes fluttered open. It was dark, and she was cacooned in several blankets. She ached all over, more than she had in hundreds of years, but it wasn't so bad as before.  
  
She sat up and realized that instead of her gray gown, she was wearing a far too large tunic. It, too, was gray. More of a natural gray that would blend into certain backgrounds, but still gray. She looked to her right, and saw her gown lain over a chair. It was clean; the blood was hardly even red anymore, and now more pink, and the mud was nonexistent. Even the right shoulder had been cleaned almost thoroughly of blood. She touched her own shoulder; her fingers met a thick bandage.  
  
She frowned. This tunic was most certainly not hers, nor did it belong to anyone she knew. Who had dressed her in it? She fidgeted uncomfortably at the thought of a stranger... No. Her mind would cause a chain reaction in her thoughts, and she would become unnecessarily anxious. Caution was one thing, trusting no one for anything was something else.  
  
She pushed aside the covers and stood, shivering when the cold air hit her. After glancing around for anyone else in presence, she changed back into her gown as quickly as she could manage with sore muscles and a bandaged shoulder.  
  
That done, she hung the tunic on the chair and sat on the bed. Obviously she was still weak. She searched for her cloak, but didn't see it. In its place on the seat of the chair, however, was a green-gray cloak with a green leaf brooch as a clasp. It was pretty, she decided, yet practical. She froze suddenly.  
  
Aradalien had loved pretty things. Nurardion had been more practical.  
  
Pain seared through her chest and heart, but she knew it wasn't truly physical. Her brother and sister were back near Khazad-dûm, dead. She, on the other hand, was nearly warm and nearly comfortable. She should have been dead. They should have been alive, and she should have been dead.  
  
Fighting tears, she forced herself to stand and don the cloak to fight against the only partially physical cold and grabbed the tunic, then set out to find the owner. The flet was empty, other than herself. Was she alone? Had her rescuer left her with their tunic and a new cloak and disappeared?  
  
Perhaps her rescuer had disappeared, but she felt that she wasn't alone. Someone was there. Whether they were friend or foe she had no notion, but she wasn't sure she cared. Finding the ladder, she climbed down, then jumped the last few feet, which was a mistake; she held herself upright only by clutching at the ladder when her knees nearly gave way.  
  
She stood and stared at her surroundings. This forest had to be the most beautiful... It was absolutely glorious. She had never been to Lothlórien, but this place had to be more beautiful. She looked down; her siblings would have loved it.  
  
A soft horse nicker drew her from her thoughts. She frowned and turned, leaning around the gigantic tree. "Gil-luin?" she asked softly. The black gelding jerked his head around and began fighting his tether as soon as he realized who it was.  
  
She moved forward and patted his long dark mane. For the past three days, Gil-luin had been her only companion. He still loved her despite that fact that she was a deserter, and served her for all she had nearly driven him to exhaustion. He was all she had left.  
  
"He has strange eyes."  
  
She jumped but disguised it as she whirled, pressing her back against Gil-luin. An Elf in a loose black shirt, gray trousers, and black boots with a gray-green cloak over his arm stood about ten feet from her. She stared at him, and he met her gaze levelly, looking her over. She did the same. He was tall, a good six inches taller than her, she would say, and broad shouldered. He was rather intimidating, with piercing blue eyes, long golden hair, and a muscular frame. She couldn't read his emotions from his eyes, as she could with most, but he was a bit cold, and arrogant. However faintly pleasing to the eye he was, he was not a 'people person.'  
  
"Th- that he does," she replied, pressing herself closer to her gelding. "Where am I?"  
  
"You are in Lothlórien." He was cold, but something in his tone was reassuring. Something told her that it wasn't put there intentionally. "Who are you, and from where do you hail?"  
  
He was blunt, too. But that didn't mean anything. "What about your name?" she demanded (somewhat nervously). "I never asked to be brought here."  
  
'I had asked to die. I don't deserve to live. I left them. They could have lived but for me.'  
  
"Humor me," he snapped.  
  
"Adariel Morelen," she said quickly. "Of Rivendell." It was then that she noticed that he wasn't wearing a tunic. She swallowed, forcing down slight panic.  
  
'Get a grip on yourself, Adariel!' she snapped. 'You were never like this before. You're acting like a frightened horse! Gil-luin is better than you!'  
  
'That was before they were killed,' she thought, but she lifted her chin and forced herself away from the comforting bulk of her gelding. She held out the tunic. "This is yours, is it not?"  
  
He stepped forward and took the garment from her. He nodded and pulled it over his shirt with no sign of being uncomfortable with the thought that she'd just worn it. Adariel cleared her throat and looked away.  
  
"Have you eaten anything?"  
  
She looked back at him. "No." She tilted her head to the right. "Why?"  
  
"I am to restore you to health," he answered shortly. Her brow furrowed slightly as he turned and started up the rope ladder. Her frown deepened and she started to follow. She whirled, her face relaxing, patted Gil-luin good-bye, then hurried to the ladder, her frown returning. She went up the rope contraption as fast as her hurts and weakness would let her, following this enigmatic, rather grumpy male Elf back to the flet.  
  
Adariel stumbled onto the wooden platform, looking around for him wildly. She turned and saw him on the western edge, looking off in that direction. He was searching for something, it was clear, but Adariel couldn't tell what. All she could see was trees. The most beautiful trees she'd ever seen, but trees nonetheless.  
  
She approached him, part of her timidity fading away. "I told you who I am," she accused. "Now who are you?"  
  
"Haldir of Lórien."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"Now that you know who I am, there is a bit of lembas near where you slept, if you would."  
  
Adariel nodded and began to slowly back away. Finally she turned and headed for where the waybread was supposed to be lying. She flung the blankets on the bed into some semblance of order, then moved over and picked up some of the leaf-wrapped lembas. She broke off a small piece and placed it in her mouth as she made her way to the hole in the middle of the flet. She began to climb down, but not after one fleeting glance at Haldir of Lórien. 


	2. Rúmil, Haldir, and Orophin of Lórien

Hello all, and an early happy Valentine's Day to ya! I probably should have waited and dragged more reviews out of you dear readers, but to be honest, I couldn't help it. However, don't expect two updates a week, or even on a week; I tend to take forever when it comes to new chapters. I'll do my best, but I can't promise anything. Just ask the poor readers of my Tamora Pierce fic Sondra's Visitors. Goodness goodness...  
  
Anyway, I'll let you read this now. Sorry for the delay folks, and *please* remember to REVIEW!! Have a great Valentine's Day and enjoy the chapter!  
  
Oh! Just in case!  
  
*emphasis*  
'thought'  
"speech"  
^*^ - time lapse; beginning/end of a chapter  
^*^  
The Dark Star  
Part Two:  
Rúmil, Haldir, and Orophin of Lórien  
  
Haldir decided that he had never met a more timid girl. He'd heard of shy, of course, but this was ridiculous. She had treated that gelding as her one and only lifeline, and that that one lifeline was fraying. Perhaps it was true; she was obviously quite distressed. And her words just before she had passed out, 'I beg of you, whoever you are, shoot me. My life is undeserved,' bothered him. Her torment was so great that she wanted her own life ended, but why?  
  
He sighed and sat at the edge of the flet. It would be so easy to slip away, to escape back to his post. But duty tugged at him, and responsibility did the same as an undertone. It was his duty to restore this girl to health, and that was the end of it. He would not, under any circumstances, allow his personal wishes to interfere with his duty. It was simply out of the question.  
  
"I don't know what to do, Gil-luin."  
  
Haldir frowned slightly. The voice belonged to the woman - Adariel Morelen. 'She must have climbed down when I wasn't paying attention,' he thought.  
  
"It's... oh, I don't know. Maybe I shouldn't be here. I'm not sure. But *they* shouldn't be dead. I should. It's my fault anyway; it's all my fault. It was my idea in the first place. I have to go back, but... will they let me? I've only met one of them, but if they're all the same, I'm not so sure."  
  
He supposed she thought she was being quiet enough that he would not hear, but Haldir heard her clearly. A perk to being lead Marchwarden of the northern and western borders was the requirement of excellent hearing. She paused, then sighed.  
  
"It's beautiful here. I don't even mind the cold much. I feel as if I could stay here forever." A pause, then, "And I feel childish! As soon as I have the slightest semblance of proper health, I'm leaving. I have to go back. No one but us knows that they're dead, and those back home have to know. And they need a decent burial. I refuse to let my brother and sister be buried at the east gate of Moria like some pair of common Dwarves. I'll just gather my weapons - hopefully they'll be able to give me a replacement string - and-"  
  
She stopped abruptly. Half a moment later...  
  
"My bow."  
  
He turned and raised his eyebrows questioningly, though he knew what she was speaking of.  
  
"Where is my bow?" It was phrased like a question but said as a command. Something he himself was used to, though more prone to giving instead of receiving.  
  
Haldir walked over to where a very small arsenal of extra weapons lay, and picked up a bow made of a deep, red tinged mahogany and etched with gold spirals and Elvish writings. A russet colored quiver held arrows of the same coloring and design. Both he handed to her.  
  
She glanced at them as she took the set, then back up at him, slightly amazed. "The string has been replaced."  
  
"Yes, it has," he remarked, voice chilly. He walked past her and back to the western edge. She stared after him.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because it was broken."  
  
It was clear to Adariel that this man had little - maybe even no - patience. "Quite obviously, but you were in no way obligated to replace it. And yet you do so without request. Why?"  
  
"How else can you protect yourself?" he demanded. "You will not defend yourself very well on hopes and dreams."  
  
That shut her up. She looked down for a moment, then slid her quiver onto her back. She pulled a bit of the lembas out of her pocket and ate it, then walked over to the northern edge, fingering her bow. Adariel sighed as she pulled at the string gently, then laid it back in place.  
  
Suddenly she laid the bow on the wooden platform, then took her quiver off her back and did the same. That done, she found a thick branch that the platform had been built around, and deftly began to climb. Of course, this feat was easy to accomplish, as she was an Elf, and soon she poked her head through the leaves and turned to the east.  
  
The sun wasn't rising yet, but that didn't matter. She was going to stay up there anyway. Aradalien had always been the one to drag her to the tops of trees to watch the sunrise or sunset. More often the latter, as Adariel had never been a morning person. Aradalien had been the one to be up before sunrise and ready for a great day with the dawn.  
  
She closed her eyes and could picture her sister perfectly. They had looked exactly alike during their first five hundred years, but after that, the difference was easy to most, if not all. Aradlien grew to be a full four inches taller than her sister, and her blue eyes had shifted to a beautiful hazel hue. Her straight black hair had changed to gentle spirals, and she had cut it to just below the middle of her back instead of her waist. Her skin, once just barely past white, deepened to a cream color as her lips darkened to scarlet. The arch of her nose strengthened, and was a bit too strong for natural beauty, but it suited her. Compiling it all, Adariel saw a dark haired, creamy skinned, hazel eyed beauty who stood anywhere between eye level and equal height on most Elves and whose slight figure was fully developed, if even a bit curvaceous.  
  
Adariel, however, was in her own opinion far from her sister's beauty. She remained short, and her eyes changed to a violet tainted sapphire. Her lashes were just as full, long and dark as her sister's, but her curves didn't hold a candle to Aradalien's. Which was just as well for her, Adariel had always said; Gil-luin was a better companion anyway. She had not only left her hair at waist length unlike her sister, but Adariel had grown it out until it was at her hip bones before finally keeping it at a specific length. Her facial features had remained soft-boned and delicate, her full lips a pale, natural pink, and her skin was just outside of white. Her build was just as slight and fragile-looking as ever, and the ends of her hair curled ever so slightly.  
  
Adariel opened her eyes once again, fingering the gray-green cloak hood as the sun peeked out from the horizon. Her sister's hazel eyes had always sparkled, except for two days out of her whole life. Well, three, the third being the day they were permanently extinguished, but she hated thinking of that.  
  
Yet it was all that occupied her thoughts. The three days the light in her sister's eyes had gone out, the third being predominant. The first being the day "aunt" Celebrían was forced to the Undying Lands due to a poisonous wound she had received a year before. The second, the day their own mother followed Celebrían for the same reasons. Their father had gone over a month later, not only because he missed his wife so dearly, but because he swore to his greatest friend, Lord Elrond, that he would keep Celebrían safe. The third was the moment that she had discovered that her brother had fallen.  
  
The oranges and blues of the sunrise promised a beautiful day, and yet Adariel herself couldn't see how it could be so. Realizing her thoughts, she sighed. She deserved no pity, let alone self pity, and she was letting her self pity distract her from her duty. She frowned and started climbing back down to the flet.  
  
Back on the platform, she saw Haldir of Lórien standing at the eastern edge, near the bed she had lain on. "Someone is coming?" she asked.  
  
"Yes."  
  
She spun, for the response had come from behind her, not from Haldir. Two Elves, who looked much like the said Elf, yet somewhat unlike, stood behind her. One, she could tell, was younger than the other. Perhaps it was the way he grinned flagrantly at her, while the other offered a very small smile and a slight bow.  
  
"My brothers," Haldir said simply from behind her. "Rúmil and Orophin."  
  
"A pleasure, my lady," the younger one said. "I am Orophin, the youngest of us. Haldir is next, then Rúmil is the eldest."  
  
Despite her slightly bedraggled appearance, she swept a curtsy any female would have been proud of. "Well met, good sir. Adariel Morelen of Imladris."  
  
"Adariel Dark Star?" he queried, and she nodded. The translation of 'Morelen' was indeed 'dark star,' a name her mother had been quick to give her, yet not her sister. She felt that her Aradalien was more deserving of the title.  
  
"A well suited name, Lady Adariel," he said, flashing a charming smile.  
  
Though she may not have been charmed by this somewhat young Elf (somewhat younger than *her*, anyway), she did find him amusing, despite her state of self-loathing. She swept into a second curtsy. "You are all too kind, Lord Orophin. Your flattery is too much, and wasted on one such as myself."  
  
Perhaps he would have gone on, but Rúmil cleared his throat ever so slightly - looking most certainly amused - and Orophin looked down with a faint blush. She smiled faintly and walked back to the northern edge and picked up her quiver - which went straight to her back - and bow as the two brothers joined their kin.  
  
After a furtive glance at Haldir and his brothers at the eastern edge, Adariel walked over to the hole in the center and started down the ladder. As soon as her head was half a foot below the flet, she leaned around the tree, looking to the east as she clutched at the ladder. She couldn't see them yet, but she knew someone was coming.  
  
As soon as she saw movement to the east, Adariel ducked back, then peeked out, watching them as they approached. The stopped just below the eastern edge of the flet and looked up. "Haldir!" one of them called.  
  
"I am here," a familiarly cold and arrogant voice replied.  
  
"You brought an Elf maiden into our woods, did you not?"  
  
It never occurred to her until then that Haldir could have gotten into trouble by bringing her into Lothlórien. She bit her lip.  
  
"Yes, I did."  
  
"Lady Adariel Morelen?"  
  
She bit back a squeak and flew back up the ladder. She stared at the backs of Rúmil, Haldir, and Orophin for a moment, before turning and facing the west.  
  
"That is her."  
  
"The Lord and Lady wish to see her. You are to take her to Caras Galadhon as soon as she is able to travel," the lead newcomer said. There was a pause, then Haldir said, "Very well. I shall speak with the lady, and we will leave as soon as possible."  
  
Adariel turned as she felt a presence come toward her - one could never hear Elves unless they themselves were an Elf, and only the trained ones even then. Though they both knew she had heard the entire exchange, she raised her eyebrows questioningly.  
  
"Lord Celeborn and Lady Galadriel wish you to hold an audience. We must leave as soon as possible; when will you be ready to travel?"  
  
"I am ready now," she said, voice devoid of emotion. If he could hide his emotions so well, then by Elbereth so could she!  
  
Before anything else could be said, she turned and went down the ladder using one hand, the other clasping her bow. Other than Gil-luin, her weapon was her only attachment to a life she had once loved. Gil-luin was by far the greater of the two, of course, but she wasn't willing to give up either connection.  
  
At the bottom of the rope ladder she turned and found herself face to face - or, eye to neck - with a border guard of Lórien. She swallowed and moved out of the way. Two others brushed past her, and Adariel had to wonder of Orophin was the only Lórien Elf who wasn't so cold. The Elves back home had all been warm and friendly. Well, most had been friendly...  
  
Turning around as if turning from the thought, she walked over to Gil-luin and patted his nose. "I am ready to travel, but are you? I'll not go if you have need of rest. I'll refuse," she whispered. He shook his mane, clearly telling her that he was *tired* of resting.   
  
She gave him a sad smile and rubbed his forehead. He turned his head and peered at her with one eye as if to say, 'What on earth is the matter with you? You were always so pleasant before this trip. And certainly not so soft-spoken; you were bold and straightforward then. Go back to how you were before!'  
  
'I wish I could,' she thought, 'but it's just a bit hard to forget your siblings' deaths.'  
  
Suddenly Gil-luin lowered himself to his horse-knees, his own way of saying, 'Mount up, silly Elf.' Adariel smiled slightly and did as ordered. She placed her bow across her lap diagonally, the top of the weapon near Gil-luin's left ear. She turned him with her knees as she gathered the reigns to face the ladder, and was surprised to find Haldir standing at the bottom of it.  
  
'Stupid Lórien marchwarden. I hope the other Elves here aren't like you or your border guard friends, because then I'll have gotten my siblings killed for even less of a cause then I've got now. At least your brothers are decent.'  
  
"Are you ready, my lady?" he demanded. His tone suggested that they were leaving whether or not she was ready.  
  
"I am," she replied simply. She glanced up and saw Rúmil, then Orophin, climbing down the ladder. Hope rose within her; if they were to come, perhaps Haldir wouldn't be so cold.  
  
Orophin moved forward and took the reigns from her, throwing her a smile. She smiled faintly in return and inclined her head toward him. Rúmil took a single step forward. "We shall be accompanying you as well, my lady. I hope it isn't a trouble."  
  
"No trouble at all, Lord Rúmil," she said. It wasn't worth the bother of telling him that she shouldn't have even been alive.  
  
"Let us go," Haldir said. He walked briskly past her, and she watched him as he did so; if she hadn't, she would have missed the slight glance the threw her as he passed. Of course, she read that glance as well she read him when he had met her eyes head on, but she couldn't help but feel that there was some hope for the cold marchwarden. Not much, mind, but some.  
  
^*^  
  
"If you don't mind my asking, my lady, how do you fair with that excellent weapon you carry?" Orophin asked. Until then, they had been traveling east in silence, and Adariel was grateful for the break in the quiet.  
  
"I do not mind, Lord Orophin. I fair well enough, but, while everyone may benefit from practice and improvement, I in particular would better from it," she replied. 'If I had continued going to the archery range despite *him* I may have been able to save them,' she added in her thoughts, but didn't dare speak aloud; because then they would want to know who 'he' was, and that was another subject she didn't like to speak of.  
  
"Perhaps we may help you better yourself," he commented. "What of your skills with a blade? I see that you do not carry one."  
  
"Because I cannot use one," she replied. "Despite the teachings of family and friends, I never could grasp the use of a blade as well as that of a bow."  
  
"Ah," he said. "We cannot allow that, my lady. Not at all. However, I myself am in no position to instruct you. Perhaps Haldir or Rúmil would aid you."  
  
"Alas, I am not one to come to for teaching in blade work," Rúmil said. "Haldir is the one for that, if any of us are."  
  
'I'd rather swallow an Orc blade. And I suspect he feels the same.'  
  
"I am not certain that I'm the best for it," Haldir said from the front of their very small procession.  
  
'An evasive maneuver if I ever saw one,' she thought wryly. "If it's all the same," she said, deciding to let Haldir off the hook, "I believe a very dear friend of mine has offered lessons."  
  
"You said before that the teachings of friends had given no result," Orophin pointed out.  
  
"Yes, but those teachings had been by her brothers, not by her."  
  
"And who is this friend that you believe can train you?"  
  
"Arwen Undómiel."  
  
She felt all of the focus of all three marchwardens center on her, but only Rúmil glanced at her; Orophin simply stared for a moment. "The Evenstar?"  
  
"Yes," she replied. "We grew up as cousins - more as half-sisters, in fact - though we have no blood ties. Our parents were very close in friendships, and it carried to their children."  
  
"Then the departure of Lady Celebrían grieved you?" Rúmil asked, as if testing her. But Adariel didn't fault him for it; placing herself in their position, she herself would have been skeptical.  
  
"Yes," Adariel told him. "Very much so. It is one of the worst three days in my memory."  
  
Before Orophin could stop himself: "And what of the other two?"  
  
"I wish not to speak of them," she said shortly, and the discussion was ended abruptly. But the thoughts had already lodged themselves in Adariel's mind.  
  
Her mother and father gone from Middle-earth, her brother and sister dead, Adariel found that she had no purpose left. No true purpose, anyway. What was her point?  
  
'Then again,' a small voice countered, 'if your life was centered entirely around you family, what was you point before?'  
  
Adariel saw the point in that, but accepting it felt wrong. What point did her *siblings* have now?  
  
'Would they want you to abandon their life?'  
  
True...  
  
'Would your parents have their only child left waste away into nothing?'  
  
No, they would not. Her friends would not have her throw everything away, and neither would her family. But, one thought swiftly darkened the others, and just as quickly abolished them:  
  
It was her fault that they were dead. A small part of her couldn't pull away from that fact that she was to blame for her siblings' deaths, and that was the end of it.  
  
A tight band squeezed at her heart, and she raised somewhat teary eyes to the forest canopy. If only she hadn't suggested...  
  
Voices pulled her back to the present. "-ly silent, Haldir. What troubles you?" Orophin was saying.  
  
She looked at the ground to her right. Adariel had the impression that he was uncomfortable speaking of the cause of his silence in front of her. But she didn't comment on it; instead she stated, "Silence can be golden, Lord Orophin. Do not be so swift to judge it when you encounter it."  
  
He attention shifted to her as Haldir looked back at her. Had he been anyone else, she would have sworn that she'd seen surprised gratitude. But of course, he was himself, not someone else, and Adariel decided that she must have imagined it and merely inclined her head toward him.  
  
"Some silence is golden my lady, but not all," Orophin said, drawing her attention. "And it seems that the most encountered kind is the least favorable."  
  
"Really?" she replied. "Most of the silence I myself have encountered is the thoughtful sort. Reflective, or simply just companionable. Then again, I have never been offered a chance at being a border guard nor marchwarden. Though perhaps they are the same, I see marchwarden as being a higher honor."  
  
"A great honor it is," Rúmil said. "And those greatest among us are of such an order." Adariel saw him glance at his younger brother up at the front, who to all appearances was totally ignoring them. But Adariel felt otherwise, though she had no way to prove it.  
  
"I find that believable," she replied simply. It was at that moment that, at the bottom of a slope, Gil-luin chose to slow and stop, refusing to take a single step forward. Adariel herself didn't try to coax him into moving; she knew that when he truly chose to stop, there was no moving him. She herself was tired anyway, and they hadn't stopped at all throughout the day. Her aches, which had faded, were returning in full force, and her body was *tired*. She wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep forever.  
  
"I think," the eldest of the three brothers said with a half-smile, "that our four-legged companion is trying to tell us something."  
  
Haldir turned from part way up the slope and looked at the gelding, then at her. Though Adariel felt as if she were hiding her weariness well, he must have seen it; the evidence was in his words.  
  
"Perhaps we should stop for the night. The Lord and Lady will understand."  
  
Of course, there was no evident compassion in his voice, but Adariel didn't mind. She was tired, and as a healer herself she felt that her shoulder needed to be tended to. Adariel dismounted and led Gil-luin over to a patch of grass, where she took the reigns off of him and let him graze. There was, of course, no saddle to tend to, as Elves rode bareback. She walked back to where her escorts were and found that there was already a small, protected fire blazing, with a bed roll set near it, and the three were positioned around the fire and bed roll like some sort of guard.  
  
It was some time later, after Adariel had tended to her shoulder (with the help of Rúmil, as she was right handed and the wound was on her right shoulder), when Haldir stood and said quietly, "My lady, if you would follow me."  
  
Intrigued, she pulled the Lórien cloak about her tighter and followed him up the slope. At the top, there was a bit of a clearing, and from her high view point she saw the most magnificent trees she had ever dreamed possible. They were enormous, even from her distance, and golden leaves shone in the fading sun.  
  
"Caras Galadhon," he told her quietly as she stared in awe. "The home of the Galadhrim, and Lord Celeborn and Lady Galadriel."  
  
There was silence for a moment, and in the evening sun, watching the gently drifting golden leaves of the mellorns at the City of the Galadhirm, Adariel nearly forgot her troubles. Nearly.  
  
"We should be there tomorrow, before the sun reaches noon point. We have made good time."  
  
There was silence again, and Adariel turned away, her shadow returning. She had no right to be in Lothlórien while her siblings lay dead. That, above all things, was what she was most sure of.  
  
^*^  
  
Well? Reviews are really nice... the perfect Valentine's Day gift for me... 


	3. The Lord and Lady of the Galadhrim and T...

Hee-do again to all! The next chapter is still in the making, but it's almost finished. I'll get it up ASAP. It does have a very strange part to it, though... Hmmmm... Oh well. I'm off!  
  
**Note: I know that a flet is supposed to be an open platform that the Elves make as homes, but the flets in this are kind of like apartments. (What are they called in Britain...? Flats? Something like that, I think. Been American all my life, so I'm sort of challenged in that area...) If you find this bothersome, I apologise, and I hope you'll read *and* *enjoy* anyway. Thanks!  
  
Mornaj  
*  
The Dark Star  
Part Three:  
The Lord and Lady of the Galadhrim and Their City  
  
It became quite clear the next day that Haldir had been lying the night before; they arrived just after the sun had set. Perhaps that had been because they had allowed her to sleep until past midday, but she didn't know why that had happened. She had nearly asked them, but decided not to. Adariel dismounted Gil-luin, staring at the city's trees.  
  
There was one simple fact: Caras Galadhon had to be was, above all, the most beautiful place she had ever seen. She had thought that the surrounding forest was glorious, but there were no words for the city.  
  
The tree trunks were illimunated white, while the leaves shone silver. The light that lit the city seemed not only to glow white, but a hint a blue as well. It was a strange thought, but it made a beautiful picture. A mist hung about the place, giving it a mystical feel.  
  
"If you will follow me," Haldir said. Adariel detected a hint of impatience in his voice, but it didn't surprize her. She patted Gil-luin, then followed the marchwarden.  
  
At the base of the greatest mellorn in the place they started up a flight of stairs that wound around the tree. She paid no attention to her surroundings as they climbed, and didn't even look up until she had followed the marchwarden over a walkway that surrounded a large hole and stood in front of the flight of steps leading to the thrones of the Lord and Lady of Lothlórien.  
  
The arch was wrought of beautiful pale wood into a twisting vine and leaf pattern. A glow eminated from the the top of the steps, and she found that she couldn't bring herself to look into it long. Something in the light suddenly shifted, and two people seemed to float down the stairs. It wasn't until the light began to fade away from them that she saw that they only *appeared* to be floating, and that they *did* walk.  
  
Her breath caught in her throat as they decended the last few steps. She had heard, from both Arwen and Celebrían, that Lord Celeborn and Lady Galadriel were a glorious sight to behold, but hearing of it and seeing if were two seperate things. Adariel's chest was tight, fighting to breathe, but this time it was not from grief.  
  
She stared for a moment, then cast her eyes to their feet. Finding it hard to look even at that, she moved her eyes to the wood between them. "You have traveled far, Adariel Morelen of Rivendell," Celeborn said, and Adariel jerked her head up to stare at him. Not only were his words unexpected, but he knew her name. No one had announced it, and yet he knew it. "Why have you come here?"  
  
'It mustn't have been hard to determine that I was... well, me. After all, not many travel from Imladris to Lothlórien, and even few start with three and end with one.'  
  
She swallowed. "A visit to Lady Celebrían's homeland was to be paid. We- My siblings and I, had heard so much of this place from our - Rivendell's - Undómiel and her mother, and we wished to behold the place for ourselves-"  
  
She stopped. No amount of awe could force more words past the tightness in her throat. She looked down, staring at the filthy and slightly threadbare hem of her gray gown. Before that moment, she had wished she had for something more apropriate to wear to face the Lord and Lady, but now all she could think of was death.  
  
A cool, comforting hand touched its fingertips below her chin and lifted her face. Lady Galadriel peered sadly into her eyes, and a battle between fear and comfort raged in her, but ease was predominant.  
  
"As a sister you are to my grandchild Arwen," she said quietly. Her voice was just as sad as her gaze. "She oft spoke fondly of you, and your cheerful demenor. Yet now you carry grief beyond that which you can bear. Why do you hold so much sorrow, Dark Star of Rivendell?"  
  
She didn't even notice the tears filling her eyes, but they didn't not fall; tears of self-disgust rarely reach the ground. "I led my siblings to their death. There is no other to blame but myself."  
  
"You carry the weight of the dead, child. Such a feat is not well for anyone, let alone one such as yourself."  
  
"I carry a weight deserved, my lady. More than what you say; my life itself is a gift undeserved, and shall become a burden to my heart until it extinguishes itself. For many who lead others to death deserve the same demise. Commanders at war defending a righteous cause are rightfully praised, but those who lead those closest to them to an undeserving ruin for a meaningless cause deserve death or fate worse. I have yet to recieve such deserving destruction and await the moment my own hearts destroys itself," she told the Lady.  
  
"Your fate," Galdariel said softly, "is not entwined in your brother's; he is content, that I know. Your sister's fate it yet to be decided, for she stands upon the brink. Your cause, whatever it may be, is as meaningless as that of your commanders and their righteous purposes, though perhaps you do not truly know your cause and fate. Despite all, your destiny is decided not by these actions, Adariel Morelen."  
  
Sorely confused, Adariel simply stared at the Lady of Light. The woman let her hand fall gently from under Adariel's chin and slowly she walked back to stand beside her husband once more.  
  
"You shall stay here, Lady Adariel, until you see fit," Lord Celeborn said. "You shall not be held as a prisoner here, for your mother was like a daughter to us both, and you shall be treated as such." He gestured to a serving woman who stepped forward. "You shall be led to your talan as soon as may be."  
  
She curtsied to them deeply, lowering her eyes respectfully. "Thank you my Lord, my Lady. You are most kind." Though the words were traditional, she meant them with her entire being.  
  
Very soon, within an instant, it became clear that she was to follow Haldir out of the Lord and Lady's presense. She curtsied again and turned to follow the marchwarden out when Celeborn spoke.  
  
"Do not abandon hope, Morelen, for it does not suit you," he said quietly.  
  
Adariel bit her lip and looked at the ground for a moment, then bowed and turned to leave, following Haldir from the chamber.  
  
*  
  
She felt the first stare at her back almost as soon as she left the chamber and were standing at another flight of steps. As Haldir spoke with the serving woman she felt eyes and turned to meet the gaze of a well dressed Elf. He continued to stare, until finally he turned away. Her hands gripped each other nervously as she bit her lip. Haldir finished talking to the servingwoman and gestured for her to follow him.  
  
They proceeded down the stairs of the great mellorn, and at the bottom Adariel felt another stare. She refused to look, and instead quickened her pace to walk beside Haldir, placing him between her and the one who stared.  
  
He looked at her curiously. "They're staring," she whispered. He saw her eyes flick to his left, and as he turned to see an Elf turning away, another slowed their pace and gawked at the lady beside him.  
  
Haldir looked in the other direction and saw two more on her other side. He didn't turn to veryify it, but he felt that there were also some behind them. He could see her discomfort, but then, he could see why they stared.  
  
She was, undeniably, beautiful, and over half of those staring were male. As well, she was darker in appearance than any they had seen in person, other than the Lady Arwen; and it had been several years since the Undómiel had graced the Golden Wood.  
  
To add to this, she was tattered and dirty, not a state any Elf would willingly submit themselves to. And the worst factor to her condition: She walked with three men, and yet was not escorted as a lady. That in itself suggested a thing that no she-Elf but the scum of the race would lower herself to. A friendly walk between confidants the people of Lórien could distinguish, and they paid no heed to such things; but they could tell that this was no pleasent walk through the city. The one thing that saved them from immediate assumptions was that they knew Haldir and his brothers, and they were highly respected.  
  
A mysterious sense of responsability to the lady forced him to offer his arm, saving not only her reputation, but that of himself and his brothers; and it was for that, he assured himself in his mind, he and his brothers' salvation, that he offered his arm.  
  
She glanced at his arm, blinked at him, glanced at one of the gawkers, then rested her palm lightly on his arm. Her hand was cold; very cold, in fact, even through the fabric of his sleeve. He did his best not to stare as she lifted her chin definatly and gazed straight ahead, as if pretending those staring at her did not exist.  
  
There was, he knew, no possible way for her to be so cold and be at full health. No Elf could be that cold! He couldn't help but noticed, as well, that she was shivering slightly.  
  
"Are you cold?" he finally demanded. She frowned gently.  
  
"No, Lord Haldir, I am not, not in the sense you speak of. Why do you ask?" she replied.  
  
"You're shivering, my lady," he said flatly.  
  
She looked down. "I realize that," she said quietly. "And it does not come from an external source."  
  
They walked on in a silence that Adariel couldn't decipher. It most certainly wasn't companionable, nor was it exactly comfortable. Yet it wasn't tense or uneasy. It was, assuredly, confusing, but she decided not to question it.  
  
She kept her eyes on the ground as they walked. Her hem was nearly black with filth, and for the first time she noticed a tear up to the middle of her calf. It was hidden among the folds of her skirt, but it was there. She bit her lip, wondering if she would wear this torn and tattered gown until she returned to Rivendell. The prospect was daunting, but her pack had dissappeared in the Orc raid; and she would *not* impose on the people of Lothlórien more than nessessary. This dress would work for the present.  
  
"Excuse me, Marchwarden," a girl said.  
  
They both turned, but managed it so that her hand remained on his forearm. The girl seemed to be roughly Adariel's age, if not younger, and had pale blond hair and blue eyes. Her dress was a very pretty pale blue.  
  
"Marchwarden, I'm afraid that I must take your lady from you-"  
  
"My lady?" Haldir demanded. Adariel jerked her hand away at the same time, as if she'd been burnt.  
  
The girl looked shocked. "I- er- I only- I had assumed-"* She stopped, blinked, then reclaimed her calm. "I apologise, Marchwarden, Lady. Miss, if you would please come with me?"  
  
She nodded to her marchwarden companion and followed the girl to a nearby mellorn and up its steps, rather angry with herself. 'Your lady' was a common phrase, and she knew it! Then why, exactly, had she made such a big deal of it? Unfortunately, she didn't know the answer.  
  
Adariel followed her into a room and she froze in the doorway. Gowns to fit any she-Elf that might require one lay everywhere. Some were hung, some draped over wooden stands, some folded in drawers that were half open, but she had never seen so many dresses (that weren't actually being worn) in her life. She'd seen her fair share of dresses, but they had always had someone in them.  
  
The girl turned, realizing that she wasn't being followed. "Come on, my lady, come in. We have to get you out of that traveling gown." She added in a jokingly wry manner: "It's quite apparent that it has seen better days, my dear. We can't have you waltzing around Lórien in that; what will the stupid ones think of Rivendell-Elves if you don't wear something appropriate?"  
  
Adariel smiled in spite of herself and walked into the dress room. "I won't have your people acquiring a bad impression of mine," she said. "Might I have your name?"  
  
"Vinyaandúnêwen, but it's such a mouthful everyone calls me Vinya," the girl replied.  
  
Once again she swept into a curtsy. "Adariel Morelen at your service, Lady Vinya."  
  
The girl giggled. "Don't bother with formalities, Miss Adariel. At least not for me."  
  
"Then you can't call me 'miss' or 'lady.' Simply Adariel," she retorted.  
  
"All right, Adariel, do you have any color preferences?"  
  
Her shadow, which had moved away a bit, shifted back into place. "Black," was the flat reply. "I'm in mourning. My brother and sister are dead."  
  
"Black?" Vinya looked a bit dissappointed. "I'd had a lovely lavender in mind... Oh, well, we must pay our respects for those who leave us."  
  
Vinya searched through a stack of gowns draped over a wooden rack, and finally pulled a black one from the pile. "Here we are. I believe it was sewn to be a mourning gown, with the veil even. I think. Here," she handed her the gown. "Go behind yond screen over in the corner and see what you make of it."  
  
Adariel walked back behind the screen, slid out of her own dress and slid into the one Vinya had given her. It was black and full length, with a scoop neckline and long, flowing sleeves. At the neckline, sleeves hems, and bottom hem was a ivy vine pattern embroidered in a pretty grayish blue. The waist dipped into a V, and from that the black part of the skirt opened to reveal an under skirt of the same grayish blue color. The same ivy vine stitching went up the sides of the over skirt opening and ran along the V, staying level back around her waist to meet the other side of the V.  
  
She gently folded her own gown and carried it with her as she stepped from behind the screen. Vinya dropped a pile of gowns in a chair and walked over to tug at the dress Adariel has just put on. After a moment she stepped back, looked her over, and smiled.  
  
"Beautiful, absolutely beautiful," Vinya said. "I found the veil." She grabbed a rectangle made of a sheer fabric the same color as the embroidery and under skirt and gently laid it over her head. The front fell to the neckline of the dress, the back to the ivy pattern around her waitst.  
  
"And this," she said as she picked up a thin, dilicate vine-patterened circlet, "holds it in place." Vinya laid it on her head over the veil. "There. I'll just grab a few more that are about this size and get them to you by morning." Adariel nodded.  
  
"Now all I need to do is find you an escort for your tour of Lórien-"  
  
"I'm hardly in a state for a tour," Adariel pointed out.  
  
"Oh," she sighed, "well, perhaps a bath first, then." Vinya tilted her head to the side. "If you will follow me?"  
  
They walked out of the room and to the right. After roughly twenty feet they turned to the left and went up a small flight of three steps. They walked for some ways after the steps, passing other walk ways that led to other places. The walked up another flight of steps - five this time; soon they were walking between two walls, and they passed four doors - two on each side - with each having about fifteen feet between them and stopped at the third door on the left.  
  
"This shall be your Lórien home," Vinya told her. "I'll be back with your guide in an hour. Everything you need for your bath should be there." She turned, then cried, "Oh!" and whirled back around. "The fastest way to the baths are that way."  
  
Adariel looked where she pointed, and saw that fifteen feet from her own door the walkway turned to the right and went downward via steps. "They're at the very bottom; we can't have the baths suspended by branches, now can we? Private baths are available, but neither of us have time to warm the water up."  
  
Before Adariel could announce that she was sure the insisted tour could wait until morning, Vinya turned and left, and Adariel was left standing outside the door. She sighed and entered the flet.  
  
Standing with her back to the door, she looked over the room. Against the far left wall was a mid-sized sofa; a long one, for that matter. Someone about a foot taller than her could have been quite comfortable. In the corner near the couch was a stove. It the middle was a rectangular pale wood table with six pale wood chairs at it; one at each end, and two at each side.  
  
At the back toward the right, to the right of a door that was dead center, was a cupboard made of pale wood as well. The top shelf had doors, but the middle two did not. At the bottom two doors covered a large portion of the cabinet; the bottom half, she estimated. Her eyes moved to the counter, made of the same wood. 'How soon before I tire of the paleness? Rivendell isn't dark, but nor is it so... light.'  
  
At the far right, a heavy, pale blue velvet curtain hung over a large opening in the shape of an arch. Curiosity tugged at her, but in the end she forced herself to the door at the back of the room.  
  
Quite clearly it was the bedroom. A four poster bed with sheer, silvery-blue hangings and made of - of course - the same pale wood as everything else. A set of drawers with a mirror was to the right of the door, across the room from the bed. A window was in the right wall, another door in the left.  
  
She went through the door in the left wall, and found a cabinet filled with towels and soaps. She grabbed a couple of each, then left the talan, ignoring any detail that came her way.  
  
Sometime later, clean and back in the black gown she'd been given, Adariel made her way slowly back to her talan. The black slippers that had been deposited with her gown while she'd bathed made no noise; indeed, the only noise made was the slight and delicate rustle of the silk of her dress. Elves made very little noise.  
  
Her hand lingered on the rail as she proceeded up the stairs. How many times would Nurardion have run up the stairs only to run back down and feign tripping her or falling to the ground far below? How persistant would Aradalien be in demanding that they have their tour that night instead of in the morning? Would her brother had glared at those who had stared, warning off any male that so much as glanced at her and her sister? Would Aradalien have been as amused by Marchwarden Orophin's antics as she had? There were so many questions.  
  
Most of which, she knew, would never get an answer. If not most, then all. Dead ones could not talk.  
  
She sighed. Her tears were nearly spent, and therefore her eyes only tingled. Crying more would have helped, but it was simply not an option. For a moment Adariel considered lowering the veil to cover her face, but decided not to. It was doubtful that she would encounter anyone, anyway.  
  
"Arwen en amin! Adariel!"  
  
Perhaps she would.  
  
She turned and found Vinya racing up the stairs after her. "Adariel, I've found you a guide-"  
  
"Please, Vinya," she said, "let it wait until morning. It is late."  
  
Vinya paused, then sighed. "I suppose that would be for the best. Good night Lady Aradriel."  
  
"Good night," she replied, the continued up the stairs.  
  
Back in her talan, she found a stack of gowns over the back of a chair. On the top of that pile was a white night dress made of a smooth, somewhat shiny material, and a over robe of the same fabric and color.  
  
Adariel picked up the stack and took them to the bedroom. She folded each, watching what she was doing yet not seeing the dress as she placed it in the a drawer. She would pay attention to such things later. Finally there was nothing left but the night dress and the gown she wore. She took off the circlet and veil, placing them both on the dresser top.  
  
She changed into the night gown, but found no place to put the black dress. She frowned slightly and turned; then her eyes fell on a vanity that was on the left side. She walked over placed the gown on the bench-like seat. Looking at the mirror, she realized that it was slightly smaller than the one on the dresser, and, more obviously, was an oval instead of a large rectangle.  
  
Straightening, she let her hand run over the smooth fabric of the night dress. It had thin straps at the shoulders, about half an inch wide, and was, in fact, very plain, other than the fact that it was form fitting and had a slit to her knees in the back. She slid into the robe, and discovered it to be a bit longer than the dress itself, and loose fitting.  
  
Not feeling quite tired yet, she walked out of the room and over to the balcony. Her dark hair was drying into ringlets that cascaded down her back, and her ivory skin was radiant, but her violet-blue eyes were dull with grief.  
  
She sighed and laid her hands on the railing of the balcony, watching the ground below. It wasn't *that* far up, but she still had a decent view; yet there was little to watch. Most had already gone to their homes and beds.  
  
"How much would they have loved this place?" she asked herself. "How welcome would we have been arriving together? What might their fates have been? What would they think of the marchwardens, Rúmil, Haldir, and Orophin? What would they think of Vinya?" She faltered. "What do they think of me now?"  
  
Her voice wavered as her eyes stung once more, and she bit her lip to keep from sobbing. She backed away from the rail as tears streamed down her cheeks. The heavy velvet curtains were closed, her bedroom door shut fast, the hangings over the window in that room pulled together, and she laid herself on her bed and cried.  
  
^*^  
*I'm sorry about that little situation there; I just had to throw Haldir of balance, even a little bit. smiles  
  
Anyway, what'd you think? I'd like to knoooooooow... Buh bye for now! 


	4. Tours and Destructive Memories

Since there is a flashback in this one, and the italics don't work, I've decided that *\/*\/* will signal the beginning and end of flashbacks, as well as signalling breaks in the flashback for little blips that occur in the present. Does that make sense? I hope so... Stupid italics...  
  
Oh, and by the way, this chapter is kinda... weird. It isn't nessisarly written very well, either. Sorry 'bout that. But, in any case, on with the show!  
^*^  
The Dark Star  
Part Four  
Tours and Destructive Memories  
  
The next morning, Adariel was adjusting her hair in front of the rectangular mirror, pulling her dark locks into a half horse tail and pinning it in a frosted silver, ivy vine patterned clip. It had dried into ringlets during the night, which was a rare occurance, but one she treasured everytime it *did* occur. Aradalien had always insisted that Adariel looked beautiful no matter what her hair did, but she knew that Aradalien had only said it to make her feel more confidant around the men-folk. Adariel had always known that her twin's efforts were in vain.  
  
There was a gentle knock at the door. "Come in!" she called, putting a curl in place before leaving her bedroom and entering the main room.  
  
Vinya, wearing a green and white gown much like Adariel's, her blond hair shining and her light blue eyes sparkling, entered the talan in a friendly whirl.  
  
"Did you sleep well?" she asked.  
  
"Yes, thank you." Adariel didn't mention that most of her night had been spent in tears for her siblings.  
  
"If you're ready, I've found you a guide. I've arranged to have someone stock the room while we're gone-"  
  
"I wasn't planning on staying long; I must get back to Rivendell."  
  
"Nevermind that for now," Vinya said, waving the dark haired woman's statement away. "But are you ready? He's waiting for us."  
  
Adariel nearly asked who 'he' was, but decided against it. "I am as ready as I will ever be," she said with a sigh.  
  
She followed Vinya out the door, and they walked down the flight of five steps and turned right. They passed over a walkway, and turned right again to walk down the steps surrounding a mellorn tree. That entrance to the stairway was about halfway up the steps, she noted as they walked downward.  
  
When they were near the bottom, she finally lifted her eyes up and was surprized to see Orophin standing on the ground below. He was dressed in a white tunic made of fine material with green trim, and green trousers with black boots. The two looked very much coordinated, and Adariel bit back a small smile. One couldn't help but wonder if that had purposely been arranged by one or the other.  
  
The young marchwarden turned as Adariel and Vinya decended the last few steps. He grinned rather cheekily at them. Adariel inclined her head, but Vinya returned a beaming smile. It seemed to the Rivendell-Elf, however, that he carefully avoided Vinyaandúnêwen's gaze.  
  
'She was right: Her name truly is a mouthful,' she thought as Orophin moved forward.  
  
"My Lady, I am honored to be in your presence once more," he said with playful flamboyance.  
  
She graced him with the small smile she had held back. "I am equally honored, Marchwarden Orophin."  
  
He offered his arm. "Shall we begin, Lady Adariel?"  
  
She gently laid her hand on his forearm, glancing at Vinya. To her shock, the normally cheery girl looked... despondent. A small frown creased her brow, then eased as she faced the marchwarden. "We shall, Lord Orophin. Vinya, you will come with us, won't you? I do believe I shall require a female point of view as well."  
  
The girl looked at her strangely for a moment, then broke into a smile. "Of course, Adariel. I would be loath to miss it."  
  
"Wonderful." She looked to Orophin. "Shall we?"  
  
The tour went as well as to be expected, if not better, with Vinya and Orophin happily giving full (and sometimes lengthy) answers to all of her questions. In fact, by the time they were nearly finished, Adariel was in a much better mood, for all the fact that her siblings' blood was on her hands was continuously lingering in the back of her mind.  
  
"And now, my lady," Orophin said as they turned back toward the east, "we head for the ranges."  
  
A part of her lit up, but something happened, something that instantly extinguished her enthusiasm. Archery ranges. Something her brother would never visit again.An ability her sister would never gain. Adariel fought for breath as they proceeded, her antics unseen.  
  
"You said that you could use a bow, my Lady, would you like to show us?" Orophin was asking. It was amazing that she could even hear him, let alone understand.  
  
"No!" she cried, startling Vinya, Orophin, and every other Elf nearby. "No! No archery, no ranges!"  
  
*\/*\/*  
  
"Nurar, do you smell that?" Aradalien asked.  
  
He lifted his chin slighly, watching their surroundings as they went rode ever-south. "Yes," he said finally. "Yes, I smell it."  
  
"What is it?" she asked fearfully. Unlike Adariel, and most certinaly unlike Nurardion, she'd never truly grasped the art of any weapon, and had been forced to leave them behind. Who would want the unnessisary weight of a weapon that wouldn't be used?  
  
"Orcs, I think," Adariel said softly. Her brother nodded verification as she continued, "We *are* near the Goblin Gate, anyway."  
  
"And we're making our way towards Moria," Nurar pointed out.  
  
"We can't make a more direct path for Lothlórien?" Aradalien asked.  
  
"It's best to stay near the mountains," Adariel said honestly, though it sounded as if she wished they didn't have to. "For all our brother's excellent sense of direction, I fear we may accidentally end up in Southern Mirkwood insted of the Golden Wood."  
  
Nurardion snorted. "With you as my aide in this, I wouldn't be surprized if it *did* happen."  
  
She made a face at him. "Hush, you. Who, pray, is the one who taught me?"  
  
"Me, but that means little."  
  
"Whatever you say," she muttered.  
  
"Adariel!"  
  
*\/*\/*  
  
"Lady Adariel!"  
  
She pulled away from Orophin, staring with wide, over bright eyes that were nearly overflowing. Vinya looked concerned and afraid, and those emotions were copied on Orophin's face. The eyes of any and all passersby were trained on her. Yet she felt none.  
  
Adariel's hands moved up to cover her mouth as she backed away and began to tremble.  
  
*\/*\/*  
  
"Aradalien, perhaps you should stay closer to Nurar," Adariel said. She did *not* like the feeling emenating from the stones of Moria. Something was very wrong.  
  
"Nonsense," was the brisk reply. "I trust you. You're as good an archer as he is, at any rate."  
  
Adariel didn't reply and looked up at the over cast sky, it's gray hue a rather foreboding color. She squinted at it as her eyes saw flurries of snow. That's all that would show, unfortunately. Flurries. She most certainly would not have minded true snow.  
  
"Adariel?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Do you hear that?"  
  
She focused, and realized that her thoughts had taken her away from her surroundings. For the first time she noted a harsh yet forcefully soft scuffling against the ground, and a low growl. She gasped.  
  
"Run!"  
  
*\/*\/*  
  
Orophin moved toward her, but she scrambled away as if he were her greatest enemy. He extended a hand to her. "Lady Adariel, please, what is wrong? What troubles you?"  
  
Still she backed away, and Orophin was left at a loss. He whirled. "Find my brother. And a healer!"  
  
"Which one?" someone - he didn't notice who - asked.   
  
"Which ever you find first, now go! Someone else, go to Lady Galadriel!"  
  
*\/*\/*  
  
Adariel raced back to their small camp, Aradalien right in front of her. She hesitated in yelling to Nurardion, but decided to do so anyway, since herself and her siblings were already found. "Nurar!" she yelled. "Nurar, Orcs!"  
  
She ran to Gil-luin and hauled her pack, bow, and quiver off of him. "Gil-luin, run. Run as fast and as far as you can. You'll know when - if - to come back."  
  
Knowing that her gelding understood, Adariel raced over to her sister's mare, pulling her long hair away from her quiver. Within an instant the mare was weightless and following Gil-luin. She did the same to her brother's mare, then ran to stand near her sister, watching and listening to their surroundings. "Nurar!"  
  
"Nurar!" Aradalien called. "Nurar, where are you?!"  
  
"Nurar!"  
  
Adariel cut off abruptly when her brother appeared from a small group of tall rocks, fending off an Orc. Aradalien screamed and grabbed her twin's shoulder, who quickly pulled away, yanked out an arrow, and shot her brother's opponent. He nodded to her.  
  
"Thanks," he called.  
  
"What on earth was *that*?" she demanded irritatedly. "No more stunts!"  
  
"I never- Look out!"  
  
*\/*\/*  
  
A wave of relief washed over Orophin as he saw this older brother walk briskly up to him. "It's lady Adariel," he explained to Haldir. "I don't know what is wrong! She looks as if I were her most feared enemy, and that she is in a place that is not Lórien. She keeps going on about her brother and sister, how it's her fault, whatever 'it' is. She was fine one moment, the next-"  
  
"Hallucinations," Haldir muttered. He'd seen it before, in Elves who had suffered through terrible horrors. It simply hadn't occured to him that there was more behind her ill health than malnourishment. He took a cautious step toward her, extending his hand, almost like a peace offering. "Lady Adariel, listen to me..."  
  
*\/*\/*  
  
Adariel whirled, shooting an arrow at the beast behind her. "It's an ambush! Adariel, Aradalien, run!" Nurar yelled, ripping his sword from his sheath and defending himself against several Orc attackers.  
  
"You heard him, Aradalien, run!" she snarled through gritted teeth, firing arrow after arrow.  
  
"No, I won't leave you!"  
  
A cry erupted from Adariel's left, and she whirled to find her brother falling to his knees, his posture stiffened in pain and surprise. She jerked her dagger from its sheath, gave it absentmindedly to her sister, and ran over to him.  
  
She caught him as he sagged to the ground. Unable to support his weight, she sank to her knees, holding her brother up the best she could. "Nurar!" she cried.  
  
"Run, Adariel," he gasped. "Take your sister and run..."  
  
Tears began streaking down her cheeks as she gripped her brother. The cause of his suffering was obvious. A rusty ax lay in the stiff hand of the Orc he'd just killed, the same ax that had sliced his back instants before. She shook her head.  
  
"No," she said bluntly, her voice choked with tears. "I won't. Just lie here and pretend..." She couldn't say it. "I'll fend them off. Gil-luin will be back soon, and I'll take you to Lórien. I hear they have decent healers..."  
  
With visible effort, Nurardion reached up and cupped her cheek. "I am so sorry..." He hand faltered, then slid away from her face and fell onto his own chest.  
  
"Nurar." Adariel shook him slighly. He didn't move, didn't respond. "Nurar!" She shook him again, a bit harder, and still he stared blankly up at the sky, and did nothing else. "Nurardion!"  
  
Adariel gently laid him back, struggling to keep herself from screaming in agony. His sword was still clasped tightly in his hand. She grabbed it and savagely attacked the first Orc she came across.  
  
She fortuitously killed that beast, then another, but it was only a matter of time before the blade was knocked out of her hand. She snatched her bow, but the thing slid in and swiped at her, doing its best to hit *anything*. And it succeeded: the bow string was sliced neatly in two, a rust color remaining on the area that was cut.  
  
There was a scream behind her, and she whirled to find Aradalien. Her twin was, however, no where to be found. "Arada-" Her cry was cut off short in a scream of pain as the rusted blade sank deep into her right shoulder.  
  
Someone spun her around. "Adariel!"  
  
She frowned. No one was there. Yet the voice was slightly familiar...  
  
"Lady Adariel, listen to me!"  
  
*\/*\/*  
  
"Adariel!"  
  
She gasped and did her best to pull away from whoever had a grip on her shoulders. When they didn't let go, she looked to see who it was with wide eyes. But instead, she broke down and sobbed into their chest.  
  
^*^  
  
Adariel stared at the mug of tea in her hand with red rimmed eyes, a blanket over her shoulders and sitting in a feeble position of insecurity, her posture something that would have made even the most relaxed (or, indeed, strongest) manners instructor faint. A few curls fell forward to frame her face as Lord Celeborn sat down on the small couch before her. His Lady sat beside him, and Marchwardens Haldir and Orophin both sat on a small sofa to her right, Vinya beside the younger of the two. Adariel avoided the gaze of all.  
  
There was silence for sometime before the Lady spoke. "What happened, child?"  
  
It was clear to all present that Galadriel wasn't looking for a technical term of explanation, nor a healer's diagnosis. Adariel closed her eyes and sighed.  
  
"I'm not sure I know. Lord Orophin mentioned archery, and I went... beserk. Mad." She opened her eyes, which were once again brimming, and looked at the Lady. "I- I saw them die. I saw the whole thing, again."  
  
She stopped and looked down again, closing her eyes once more. She knew she should have been humiliated by her behavior, but somehow she couldn't be. But the catch was that she didn't know what to think anymore; grieving for her siblings was self-pity, and she deserved no pity whatsoever, much less that from herself. But with that thought gone, her mind was confused, baffled. The only solidity in her thoughts was the concrete idea that she was to blame. So she anchored herself to that, clinging to a believed truth, desperate for some sort of genuine fact that was so stable in her unstable state.  
  
She closed her eyes again, coming to a decision: She could stay here no longer. "My lady, I believe-" she paused, then forged ahead, "I believe that I should return to Rivendell. My siblings deserve a burial, and we have very dear friends back home that have the right to know... what happened."  
  
Galadriel smiled gently, knowing that the girl had finally made a wise - though rather rash, considering her current state - decision. "I had been expecting this, if not quite so soon. An escort will be assembled to accompany you when you leave tomorrow."  
  
Adariel looked up and opened her mother, and everone knew that she would have protested the use of an escort on her account, but she seemed to realize that this insistance would be brushed aside, and therefore fruitless, and closed her mouth again. She looked back down at the mug in her hands as she whispered, "All right."  
  
"Perhaps," she looked at the speaker, Celeborn, "Lady Vinya will help you prepare, Morelen."  
  
Adariel nodded rather vaguely and stood, shifting the blanket from her shoulders. She laid it gently on the table and placed the mug beside it as Vinya stood, looking uncharacteritically somber. Adariel followed Vinya toward the door, keeping her eyes on the ground. She had lost controll completely...  
  
She paused at the door, her hand resting on the handle. Adariel stood there for the smaller part of a moment before saying to the handle, "Thank you, my Lord, my Lady." She actually look at them when she said, "For everything."  
  
She looked back down at the floor and left without another word, not waiting for a reaction.  
  
^*^  
  
"Marchwarden Orophin, you may leave," Lady Galadriel said gently. "But, I would like to speak with you, Haldir."  
  
Was this about his part in breaking the Morelen from her hallucinations? Or did this have something to do with his letting her into the Wood in the first place? Haldir didn't know if it was either of those, nor if it was anything else. For all he knew, Lady Galadriel wanted to know if he thought the sky was blue, though he doubted it would be something so trivial as sky color. Besides, with the winter storm just passing over, finally moving on, leaving snow in its wake, he doubted that the sky was even blue at that exact moment.  
  
His brother bowed to the Lord and Lady, clasped Haldir's shoulder, perhaps in a good luck gesture, and left. Haldir was on his feet as soon as the Lord and Lady made an attempt at standing. Galadriel watched him for a moment before moving toward the door. "Walk with me, Marchwarden," she said. Haldir detected no emotion other than amicable kindness, though it was placed at a short distance.  
  
He nodded and followed, just as he was expected, careful to keep his confusion from his expression. Emotions had never done anything except get in his way; therefore, it was easiest to act as though they didn't exist. It had made his life a little easier, at any rate.  
  
Until they were in the Lady's Glade, there was silence; but not long after they had stepped into the garden, Galadriel said, "I must ask you to lead Lady Adariel's escort when she departs for Imladris."   
  
When he didn't respond - or perhaps because of the lack - she continued. "You have shown me something that I believe is required when watching over this woman. She is vulnerable, and will need someone who will aide her in coping that vulnerablility."  
  
"With all respect, my Lady," he said hesitantly, "I believe that matters of the mind are not exactly my... specialty."  
  
"This is no contest of specialties, Marchwarden," Galadriel told him. He couldn't tell what she was thinking. She turned to face him directly, and Haldir was forced to meet her gaze. "Adariel Morelen was once a strongwilled person, but has since been weakened, and not merely by the death of her siblings. She cannot do this alone, despite what she may say."  
  
What was he to say to that? Haldir hadn't the slightest idea. So, he merely nodded. "Yes, my Lady."  
  
^*^  
  
I told you that there was a strange part! Was it too strange? I hope not. A reivew would be really nice, but the way... big smiles 


	5. Returns that Will Never Come

Ack!! I didn't edit part four!! "Adariel looked up and opened her *mother*?" Mouth!! There's about a bazillion others, too. Goodness gracious.... Sorry 'bout that!  
  
Oh goodness... I feel so stupid now, hehe... I've been spelling Nurardion's name wrong! It's Nurardaion! I was looking at my Elvish name sheets, checking the spelling of a character's name that will be appearing in this chapter (his name, not him) and I noticed it. You can tell I haven't looked at those in a while!  
  
Okay, okay, laugh at me later. I'm a blond. I'll leave now. But remember to have fun! sulks away  
^*^  
The Dark Star  
Part Five  
Returns that Will Never Come  
  
Standing at the western edge of Caras Galadhon, wearing a simple blue gray traveling gown and a Lórien cloak, Adariel pressed her back against Gil-luin, watching the unmoving trees. A faint mist hung in the air as she stared into the forest of Lothlórien. She had perfected an impassive mask, the one she used to wear during her childhood, but her eyes showed both her grief and conflict.  
  
Surely going back was a good thing? But... if she saw her brother, she might lose control again; that couldn't happen. She had enough to deal with, she didn't need her friends and 'family' back home thinking that she'd returned to them crazy, let alone her marchwarden and border guard companions.  
  
Then again, the girl who would be returning to them in - if things went well - a week and a half was very different from the girl who'd left. Who was to say that they wouldn't think she *was* crazy? A hint of a smile touched her lips as she remembered a comment Elrohir had once said, "Just because you're sane doesn't mean you aren't mad!"  
  
She'd lightly hit his arm and demanded to know just who he thought he was, talking to her like that. His response was a beaming grin just before he grabbed her and tickled her until she could hardly breathe. Her current smile broadened as she remebered how Arwen had done her best to save her, but had only ended up victim to Nurardaion.  
  
"I saw that."  
  
She jerked her head to her right and saw Vinya watching her, a small smile on her face.  
  
"Saw what?" she asked innocently, her smile fading ever so slightly as she returned from her memory.  
  
"That smile," Vinya informed her, her own smile growing. "What where you thinking of?"  
  
Adariel shook her head as if it were nothing. In fact, she said, "It was nothing. I was just, remembering a comment said by a very dear friend."  
  
"What was that comment?" Vinya asked, genuinely interested.  
  
"'Just because you're sane doesn't mean you aren't mad,'" she quoted with a broad smile. Vinya laughed.  
  
"I may quote them someday! Who said it?"  
  
"Elrohir. He is rather prone to such comments."  
  
The girl's smile didn't fade, but her gaze did grow, to Adariel's confusion, rather amazed. "As in Elrohir of Rivendell, son of Lord Elrond?"  
  
"Yes," Adariel replied, a confused frown creasing her brow. "Why?"  
  
Vinya simply shook her head. "The people you know, Morelen."  
  
If *that* wasn't confusing, Adariel didn't know what was. So she knew Elrohir, son of Elrond, what did it matter? She did tend to call Lord Elrond 'Uncle Elrond,' after all; Elladan, Elrohir, and Estel, and later Arwen, had grown up as second siblings to her, for that matter. Her second family.  
  
Instead of replying, Adariel turned and stroked Gil-luin's neck. "Will you be coming with us, Vinya?" she asked.  
  
The girl sighed. "No, not this time. But my cousin, who resides in Rivendell, will be giving birth within a month. I'll be there to welcome the child into the world, so perhaps I shall see you then."  
  
Adariel smiled. "I hope so. But I *had* hoped that you'd be accompanying us; I'll have to handle so many of the male species." It had been a lasting joke between Adariel, Arwen, Aradalien, Nurar, Estel, Elrohir, and Elladan; women were completely insufferable, while men were absolutly intolerable.  
  
But of course, Vinya did not know of this, nor was the fault her own. "I have a strange feeling that you'll handle them quite well."  
  
"Oh, well enough," she replied absently, ducking under Gil-luin's neck to watch the approaching group of Elves. To her surpize, at the head of the group walked the Lord and Lady of the city. Another, even greater, shock was that none other than Haldir and his brothers stood at the head of the group of Lórien border guards and marchwardens. Surely he wasn't leading the escort?!  
  
'He must have been ordered to lead,' she thought rationally. 'Why would he have anything to do with me? Quite clearly I was an inconvenience from the very beginning.'  
  
Adariel blinked as she realized what she'd just done. Automatically, she'd assumed two things, one being that Haldir was leading in the first place, and two being the fact that he had been ordered to do so, if he *was* in the foremost position. Simply because he acted as if he didn't care for the world didn't mean that it was true; she of all people should have known that!  
  
Vinya touched her arm then went to stand near the small group of people that had come to see off their family members and friends amongst the guard. Roughly eleven people for seven guard memebers stood in a cluster, smiling sadly at the marchwardens and border guards and shooting Adariel furtive glances when they thought that she didn't see, their thoughts incomprehensible.  
  
Avoiding the eyes of the Lórien bystanders, Adariel watched the escort and the Lord and Lady, doing her best to remain as impassive as she had before. What others thought of her hand always mattered little to her, why should it matter more than that now? But then, she'd always had someone to turn to growing up in Rivendell; a friend or family member to support her and her convitions. In Lothlórien, however, she was alone.  
  
'Perhaps not alone,' she realized. Vinya was clearly a friend, though perhaps not a close one, and Orophin... she was fairly sure he was a friend. Rúmil was distant, but friendly, and had the potential to be a steadfast friend and advisor to anyone, but Haldir... Haldir was a confusing thought in himself, so she simply avoided it.  
  
No, she wasn't alone, but all the same, being amongst those she not only knew, but knew well and loved, would be a reassurance.  
  
Adariel moved away from Gil-luin and toward the Lord and Lady of Lothlórien, who stood but a few feet away from the escort, now assembled before Marchwarden Haldir. This confirmed her prior suspicions; Haldir *was* leading. Adariel wasn't sure what to think of this, so she didn't think of it at all.  
  
She swept into a curtsy once more when she was before Galadriel and Celeborn. "My Lord, my Lady, I thank you agian for all you have done."  
  
"You're quite welcome, Adariel," Celeborn said as he moved forward and, to her well-hidden surprise, kissed her gently on each cheek. He stepped back, and his wife moved forward and did the same. Both were smiling as they stood beside each other once more.  
  
"Know that you are most welcome in these lands, Adariel Morelen," the Lady said. "And make no hesitation in returning to us."  
  
She inclined her head respectivly, doing her best to hide uncomfort. She couldn't decide if she liked the Lord and Lady being so fond of her; rulers made her nervous. It never occured to her that she'd grown up practically as a daughter to people of nearly equal - if not completely equal - status to those before her. "Thank you for your gracious offer. Do not concern, for it most certainly will be seriously considered."  
  
Both nodded silently, and it was almost as if she'd been given permission to turn around and walk back to her gelding; which was, in fact, exactly what she wanted. Adariel certainly had not wanted to simply turn around and waltz over to him, turning her back on the Lord and Lady of the Galadhrim in the process.  
  
Adariel curtsied once again, then turned and walked over to Gil-luin, who nudged her gently as if to say, 'Turn around and say good bye to the nice people so we can leave. I'm ready to go!'  
  
She swallowed and turned around to find everyone present watching her. Some were smiling, some looked thoughtful, others looked completely impassive, but none looked scornful or scathing. Meeting Vinya's gaze, who looked sad and yet at the same time was beaming, Adariel hoped that the girl *would* travel to Rivendell - *safely* - if only to guarantee her the chance to see Vinya once again.  
  
She nodded to everyone watching her, then turned and gathered Gil-luin's reigns. The gelding eyed her, clearly thinking that she was being silly, not mounting up, but made no protest. For which Adariel was admittedly thankful.  
  
Unsure and uneasy, Adariel looked from Vinya, to Galadriel and Celeborn, to the escort, wondering what on earth she was supposed to do. Was she to simply leave, or was she expected to make some sort of grand speech or something of that sort?  
  
Thankfully, the question was answered for her. Haldir turned and nodded to his men, who promptly moved forward to surround her in a loose circle. As confused as his mistress, Gil-luin moved closer to the Rivendell-Elf, who did her best to remain impassive; she simply loathed being confused, and she was as confused as she could be. But then Rúmil glanced at her, signalling with his eyes that they were to move forward then. She gave him a hardly noticable nod of relieved thanks as they began to move forward, entering the forest.  
  
^*^  
  
Sometime later, Adariel decided that the whole surrounding-her-at-the-edge-of- the-city part was really quite pointless. There was nothing in the Golden Wood that would harm them; it would have made more sense to just leave, and to pull up their guard when they left the safety of the Wood.  
  
But, of course, a simple girl from Rivendell wasn't in a place to criticize the traditions of Lothlórien. Yet for some strange reason she couldn't pull her mind away from it, so she decided to consider the differences of the two Elven settlements.  
  
One marked difference was color: Lothlórien was so... pale, while Imladris wasn't pale, but wasn't really dark, either. More of a blend of the two than either one specifically. The people in Imladris - particularly the guards and such - were friendlier too. But that may have been, perhaps, because she knew many of the Rivendell guards, several of them she knew personally. As well, Lórien was under many more attacks than Rivendell; but that didn't mean that Imladris didn't see it's fair share of attacks.  
  
One of the attacks had occured when Adariel was out with her brother, who was on duty, and one of his friends. Roughly fifteen orcs had attempted to ambush them, but had been ambushed themselves. It had been the first time Adariel had fought in skirts, and she had done so ever since, as if proving that women *could* fight and look nice at the same time. Just because their dress and hair were both ruined in the process didn't mean it couldn't be done.  
  
She looked down, her eyes prickling again. If she hadn't refused the escort from Rivendell, Nurardaion would, more than likely, still be alive, as would Aradalien. But she had been so terrified that if she *did* accept the guard, Dimalphion would have found a way to follow them to Lórien. Now, when she thought back, she would have rather faced Dimalphion by herself again - and a thousand times - rather than have what happened to Nurar and Aradalien.  
  
So many things that were in her power that she should have or should not have done, all leading up to the deaths of her kin. It was more fixed in her mind than ever: She, Adariel Morelen of Imladris, was to blame for the deaths of her only remaining family.  
  
She had half blindedly organized the travel plans, rushing through them and glazing over the small details. In her rush to leave *him,* she had overlooked more than she wished to remember, including the reports of strange orc-activity around Moria. She had brushed aside the offer of the escort, and had left nearly a week earlier than what was not only prudent, but earlier than what was wise. They had left too early, too unprepared, and too few for a pleasent - let alone successful - journey.  
  
Her desperation to leave had been so great that she had ignored her sense of foreboding; not passing it off as nerves, but ignoring it completely. And by doing that, she had signed the final signature on her siblings' death warrants.  
  
^*^  
Half a day later; sunset  
  
They halted on the eastern bank of the river Nimrodel as the sun began to lower in the sky. It was a landmark that Adariel was unsettled to realize that she didn't remember crossing. As the men surrouding her began to prepare camp - or whatever it was they did; Nurardaion had always told her to take care of the horses or to keep watch and let the men to the rest - she turned to her horse and took off the two packs, her bow, and her quiver.  
  
She set her pack and weapon against a tree, out of the way, then took the other pack and moved to the center of the sort of circle that had been created. There were quiet converstations going on, but all but three would occasionlly glace at her as if they had been forbidden to speak around her. She avoided their gazes and set on her task of making supper, beginning by gather dead wood from the ground.  
  
It was habitual: Adariel had always cooked when they were out; Nurar had been hopeless at it, and Aradalien had hardly even learned in the first place, leaving Adariel with the cooking duties. Which, she had decided long ago, she didn't mind in the least. A larger-than-normal amount of teasing and playful bantering had always taken place while supper was being prepared, served, and eaten; eveyone was always smiling.  
  
She sighed as she began to pile with wood strategically, then started a small but very warm fire, made so due to the positions of the logs. She added a couple small logs to the fire then grabbed a pan, stood, and went to the Nimrodel to fill it with water. She was followed.  
  
"My Lady, may I ask what you're doing?" Rúmil asked.  
  
"Of course you may," she replied, straightening with the pan half-filled with water. "I'm making your evening meal. Someone has too, and, no offense intended, as I'm sure that you're all excellent soldiers, but I highly doubt that any of you are experts in the art of cooking."  
  
"You needn't be an expert for an escapade such as ours," he pointed out wryly.  
  
"No, you needn't be an expert," she agreed, "but it does make your trip a bit more pleasant."  
  
"I do see your point," he admitted, kneeling down near the fire as she did the same. "But, are you not virtually a daughter to Lord Elrond? What drove you to learn such a skill when your family is of such rank?"  
  
Adariel snorted, realizing that most of the others were listening. "Bordom! There were times when I was too young to help in the library or infirmary and had not yet proven myself in the archery range and was therefore unwanted. My choices were to either find *something* to do or have even more etiquette lessons forced upon me. The mother of one of my friends heard of my situation and asked if I would like to help in the kitchens. I accepted the offer."  
  
Orophin flopped down on the ground on the other side of the fire, across from Adariel. "We all understand why you'd choose the kitchens," he said, waving his hand to indicate the whole group, "yet most women would be more likely to choose the etiquette. Why did you chose otherwise?"  
  
She shrugged, brushing a stray strand of hair away from her face. "I'd already gone through all the levels of etiquette by then, and mastered them. I had no wish to start over."  
  
"Understandably!" someone said, and a chuckle filtered through the group.  
  
Adariel broke open a cloth ball and emptied the dried contents of what would soon be a soup into the water. After some consideration, she did the same with a second; let them eat all they needed, not just how much she decided to make.  
  
"I suppose your parents didn't look kindly upon your choice?" Rúmil asked, and Adariel wondered if she was totally transparent.  
  
"My father simply laughed and said to remember that I was to practice archery with him and my brother once daily. My mother didn't speak to me for three weeks."  
  
She felt several stares of disbelief and stubbornly kept her eyes on the pot of soup.  
  
"Three weeks?" someone repeated.  
  
"Why?" another asked.  
  
She shrugged again, forcing herself to be as transparent as steel. "She felt that it was servants' work. She was very kind, but believed solidly in her rank. She was never cruel, but she was rather... aloof." Adariel didn't mention that she had never been more than 'Morelen' to her mother, nor that - while she *had* been kind to everyone else - she had always been rather cold toward the daughter she'd titled 'Darkstar.'  
  
While most of the disbelieved stares slowly relaxed, one gaze was still trained on her. Adariel looked up to see Haldir watching her, as unreadable as ever, and she knew that he saw straight through her.  
  
Frowing at the thought of being so transparent, Adariel focused back on dinner, then said, "As displeased as my mother was, it worked out for the best; not only did I learn to cook, and do the task well, but I met several new people, including the girl who later became my brother's wife and the mother of my niece."  
  
"You introduced them?" Rúmil asked.  
  
"No, actually. My brother had come to the kitchens to tell me that I was wanted at the ranges, and Noviel happened to be there as well that particular day," she replied blinking away the stinging sensation from behind her eyes.  
  
Adariel pulled out seven wooden bowls, as well as a spoon for each, and served each his soup as someone said, "How old is your niece?"  
  
She looked up, squinting as she calculated and fighting the urge to collapse in tears. "I think she'll be... about eleven months old in roughly a week and a half."  
  
'Growing up without a father.'  
  
"And what of your sister? Did she have any children?"  
  
"She- she had a fondness for flitation, but no," she choked out. 'She shall never have children of her own...'  
  
Adariel jumped to her feet. "If you'll excuse me?"  
  
She didn't wait for an answer, she simply left. She considered running, just dashing for Rivendell and not stopping until she was safely in Elrond's house, her door bolted and her curtains tied shut. But then, how would she get Nuradaion's... How would she get him back to Imladris?  
  
She hadn't considered Celebnoviel and her daughter, Elencaran, until then. If Adariel was having such a hard time coping, how would Noviel be? Left to raise a child on her own, faced with never seeing her love again.   
  
Adariel could only imagine what it would be like, to lose someone so dear to her. Guilt smashed into her like a tidal wave, and even more crashed down upon her when she thought of her little niece growing up never knowing her father.  
  
Elencaran was a beautiful child, looking just like her father, with a more delicate touch to her features from her mother. Everyone had willingly accepted the beautiful kitchen girl into their family, and had been overjoyed to find that she would be having a child. Elencaran had hardly had time to see her mother once she was older than two months; Nurardaion had taken her everywhere. And when she wasn't with her father, she was with her aunt Adariel, aunt Arwen, uncle Elladan, uncle Elrohir, or uncle Elrond, and occasionally her aunt Aradalien would take her for a day. But, more often than not, Elencaran would be found in the gardens by the small stream, playing in the water with Nurar.  
  
Nurar would occasionally take her to the archery ranges, where El, as they called her, would meet his friends from the guard, who would contradict their facades of unwavering toughness by passing her around, each man taking his turn holding her, and they soon developed a soft spot for her. When one of the men had brought his son, who was a few months older than El, all - particularly Nurar - had said that the little boy could play with El for now, but once he was five he couldn't be within ten feet of her without an escort.  
  
Nurar had always been the overprotective sort. Any male who showed interest in his sisters had to pass through Nurardaion, son of Nimrómen and Avarlammeniel first. Goodness help you if you showed interest and were, for some reason, on his bad side; which was rare, as Nurar had never truly had a 'bad side,' since he'd always been the good natured sort. But if he'd been over protective of his sisters, Valar help those of the male race who looked at his baby girl the wrong way when she was old enough to begin courting.  
  
Aradalien wasn't married, and certainly didn't have children, but did not mean that she was not loved. She had more friends than Adariel could count, and were very close with several of them. The men had loved her, of course, but few were serious, simply infatuations; many were merely friends. Aradalien had never been able to cook, use a bow, or wield a sword, but she had the ways of courtship and socializing down to an art.  
  
Adariel's twin had always loved beautiful things. She'd constantly worn beautiful gowns and dresses, and had amost always found the time to watch the sunrise and sunset, more often than not dragging Adariel along. It had been Aradalien to pull her from being the shy, soft spoken little girl she'd grown up as and turn her into the young woman who, most of the time, made friends with people swiftly, and could talk just as much as she could listen, when she used to do nothing but listen, letting other people burden her with their troubles. Then again, despite Aradalien's teachings, Adariel still tended to let others tell her their problems, and she still tended to carry the burdens of other people as well as her own. But Aradalien had accomplished somewhat; occasionally Adariel would finally open up and let someone else help her with her own problems.  
  
It had been Aradalien who had helped her prepare for the midsummer banquet several years ago, at which she had caught several eyes. Aradalien had always stood up to their mother for her; when Avarlammeniel had stopped speaking to her for working in the kitchens, Aradalien had convinced the woman that it wasn't a bad thing, Adariel was simply unlike her mother.  
  
When Adariel had gotten into a courtly mess by accusing a certain man of attacking her, Aradalien had jumped to her defense when he had accused her of lying to the council simply because he had been watching her in the gardens that day. He hadn't been found guilty, due to lack of evidence, but his reputation and crediblility had been demolished.  
  
Most, if not all, of Imladris would be affected by all this. All that pain, cause by a single girl who had been so terrified of being forced to confront a man for a second time that she couldn't wait until it was safer, couldn't have an escort, couldn't listen to scout reports. She had failed to do everything in her power to protect them, and now and entire community would pay the price. Adariel wouldn't be surprised in the least if they threw her in the dungeons or banished her when she returned. It was more than she deserved.  
  
"Lady Adariel."  
  
Realizing that there were tears on her cheeks, Adariel reached up and brushed them away, turning to face whoever was behind her. Seeing who it was, she blinked in surprise. "Marchwarden Haldir."  
  
"You shouldn't be out here alone, my Lady," he told her, taking a couple steps forward.  
  
She looked away once more. "The forest of Lothlórien is well protected."  
  
"A precaution," Haldir countered, "and preparation for later in our journey; you cannot simply wander away when we're out from Lórien's protection."  
  
She made no response, and instead turned and rested her palm on the rough bark of a nearby tree. "Have you ever been face with a decision and made the wrong choice, thinking it was the right one and that it was for the best, only to find that it was the wrong choice?" She looked up at him. "Only to have it go drastically wrong and steal everything away from you?"  
  
Haldir considered her for a moment, then said, "Yes, though the circumstances were different compared to yours."  
  
Adariel sniffled, wiping her eyes. "What happened?"  
  
He walked closer, then leaned against the tree, watching the leaves. "During my first week as Secondary Marchwarden, the western border was attacked during my watch. I chose to take fewer men than I should have; two of us out of eight came back."  
  
She sniffled again, her gaze sympathetic. "I'm sorry."  
  
Haldir shook his head. "That was years ago; I've learned from the mistake I've made, and I've done my best to help the families in anyway I can. All I can do is attempt to never make the same mistake again."  
  
And with that he was gone. Adariel looked down and leaned against the same tree. 'I'm not the only one who has made the wrong choice,' she thought.  
  
'But I had chances to amend things, and I did nothing,' another voice countered. Had everything depended on one mistake, it would have been different. But her circumstances involved several mistakes, all of which we had a chance to correct.  
  
So many people were depending Nurardaion and Aradalien on returning, but would be dissappointed because Adariel had failed. There were so many people waiting for their return. Returns that would never come.  
  
^*^  
  
Well? What do ya think? 


	6. Silent Agony

And here are some fic recommendations from yours truly!  
  
'Perfect Balance' and 'By Blood' by ScoobySnack. They're pretty awesome, but I haven't gotten all the way through 'By Blood' yet, so I can't say anything on 'Invisible Scars.'  
  
'Eternal Winter' and 'Broken Arrow' by Aulizia. One-shot insight fics, and yet absolutely wonderful at the same time.  
  
There are about a bazillion others, and I just want to feature two authors per part, so check out my fave. stories list and fave. authors list for more. Hehe, now I'm starting to sound like an advertisement.  
  
Anyway, I'm doing my best to cope with my disk problem; I think I've got it sorted so that it won't happen again anytime soon. I certainly hope so... Thanks for being so patient, at any rate!  
  
^*^  
  
The Dark Star  
  
Part Six  
  
Silent Agony  
  
Two days later  
  
Humming and twirling a lock of dark hair around her finger - hair that had since dried back into its typical straightness - Adariel sat before a fire some distance from the rest, fixing breakfast just before the dawn (which would prove to be a disappointing one, as clouds covered the sky). Gil-luin stood merely two yards from her, munching happily of grass that was just barely green, hardly recovered from the chill of Winter.  
  
Her gelding, she was amused to realize, was acting as a sort of lookout. She saw it in the way his ears flicked about, listening for any sign of foes. She also saw that his eyes would dart up occasionally, searching the landscape; every so often, he would raise his head, look about, look back as if to assure himself that the escort was still there, then would return to his grazing.  
  
"Humming again, I see, my Lady," Nimneldor said cheerily.  
  
"Humming again, I *hear,* you dolt," said Culmîr jokingly. Sûlthalion chuckled while Elfalas snorted as all four men sat down around the fire.  
  
Adariel gave them one of her rare, full smiles - which had, however, only been rare as of late; before, it had been more uncommon to see her with a small smile. "Now children," she admonished jestingly. "If we're to travel together for the next week, we must learn to get along."  
  
They laughed and Elfalas said, "Yes Mother."  
  
She served them their breakfast. "If you wish to seem me resemble a mother," she said sternly, "refuse to eat."  
  
None took her up on the challenge. They began to eat as Adariel sighed, filled another three bowls, and stood awkwardly. "I shall return," she said to them. "No bickering."  
  
"Yes Mother!" they all replied, and she made a face at them, smiling herself. The three brothers had stood somewhat apart from the others for quite some time, speaking to each other of... something. But as she approached two - Rúmil and Orophin - nodded to the third and began to walk toward her.  
  
When she met up with them, she handed each a bowl. "Eat, if you please. The others are over there." She waved vaguely toward the other four and continued toward the Marchwarden. The other two hid smiles - clearly the Rivendell-Elf was on a mission: to make Haldir eat - but didn't say anything as they let her continue, her gelding following behind her.  
  
As soon as she approached him, Adariel prodded Haldir in the shoulder. He turned toward her, raising a questioning (and infuriatingly arrogant) brow at her. She thrust the bowl at him.  
  
"If you would, Marchwarden, eat your food?" she said lightly. "I've yet to have anyone collapse on my watch, and you will *not* be the first." Somewhere inside, she didn't understand her somewhat hostile mood; he hadn't refused to eat, so why was she pushing the subject? She didn't care to dwell on it, if she could help it; she would only come up answerless, at best.  
  
"And when, if I may so bold as to ask, did *you* last eat, my Lady?" he demanded.  
  
Adariel scowled. So she hadn't eaten anything since the lembas at the flet when she'd first arrived in Lórien, what did it matter? She hadn't been hungry since then, and had always been taught not to eat anything if she wasn't hungry. "What does it matter?" she asked evasively, clumsily sidestepping the question.  
  
"You haven't had anything but lembas for over a week?" he demanded. A look of extreme disapproval passed over the marchwarden's face and he thrust the bowl back into her hands.  
  
"I'll get my own," he said, and marched away without another word.  
  
Adariel glared at his retreating back. Glowering at him sourly, she plopped down onto the ground as Gil-luin came up to stand just behind her, his nose nearly on her shoulder.  
  
"Stupid Marchwarden," she said halfheartedly, taking a bite of her breakfast, and Gil-luin snorted in response.  
  
^*^  
  
As they continued later on in the day, a silence veiled the party of eight like the clouds that veiled the sun. If they continued at such a steady pace, they would reach the place where the ambush occurred roughly an hour and a half before sundown, if her estimations were correct. At the thought, her anxieties from before returned.  
  
Would those visions - what had they been called? Hallucinations? - return once she saw her brother? Or perhaps, would she be lost in more pleasant memories? Or, other than those two options, would she simply be forced to endure her grief alone and in full consciousness, unable to turn to those who she typically would for fear of scorn and rejection?  
  
Of course, there was another path that could be taken. Perhaps she would simply collapse with grief, never to awaken.  
  
Adariel tugged the Lórien cloak tighter, not just because of the growing cold, and watched the darkening clouds. 'Snow later on, perhaps?' she thought absently, struggling to move her line of thought as she twirled a lock of hair around her finger. It was a trait she and Arwen shared, and was something she'd done for as long as she could remember.  
  
A nudge on her shoulder alerted her to her gelding's insistent presence, and she reached back and stroked his dark mane. Gil-luin pressed closer to her, and she realized with a jolt that he was nervous. 'This cannot be a good omen,' she thought, suddenly anxious herself. She simply continued walking, a worried frown creasing her brow.  
  
She bit her lip and threw all of her concentration into listening to her surroundings. There was, however, a single missing element: there was nothing to listen for. There was only the slight wind waving through the grasses on her right, on the other side of Gil-luin, and the plod of the gelding's hooves. There was a muttering, and looked up to see Haldir and Sûlthalion speaking to each other gravely. Did they feel it too? She could only hope-  
  
Adariel froze. She thought she heard a wind, but there was one problem.  
  
There was no wind.  
  
Sûlthalion ran ahead as Adariel, instead of continuing with walking, went around to Gil-luin's other side, watching the grasses that were interrupted by the occasional copse of trees. Culmîr looked at her oddly, looked in the direction she was, and he came to his own realization. The Elf of Lórien ran over to his commander as Adariel whirled and hurriedly untied her bow and quiver from Gil-luin.  
  
She put an arrow between her teeth as she checked the string for tightness, as she hadn't unstrung it for days on end, the exact opposite of bow-care. Her brother would have reprimanded her strongly.  
  
Putting the thought from her mind, she stationed herself before her gelding - the quiver strapped strategically to his back - realizing that she couldn't assure him protection by letting him go this time. Because of this, Adariel resolved to protect him instead, and she notched her arrow, glaring at the nearest copse, but not drawing.  
  
Up ahead, where she could not see, there was a furious yell and a growling, then a shriek of pain. Sûlthalion came up over the hill.  
  
"Yrch!" he cried, and instantly there was movement.  
  
Movement toward her included, apparently. Before she had time to protest, there was a circle around her and Gil-luin, blocking any attack that might be made toward her, as well as effectively blocking any attack she herself could make. There was a growl from the tree line, and at least a score of orcs launched themselves at the Elven party.  
  
Irritated at being thwarted and knowing that she would never win a verbal battle with the marchwarden *and* his sentinels, she turned, mounted Gil-luin as the Elves launched their arrows at one, and launched an arrow of her own once she was above the others. Realizing with horror that the orcs would surround them because *they* were surrounding *her,* she quickly nudged her gelding, who knew exactly what to do.  
  
Adariel clung to him as Gil-luin reared, screaming, effectively scattering both orcs and Elves. The gelding burst through the strewn line as his rider notched an arrow and let fly. She bit her lip as the movement pulled at her wounded right shoulder. She put it from her mind as there was a yell behind her that she ignored as Gil-luin wheeled and she shot another orc.  
  
Haldir yanked out his blade, and both Elfalas and Nimneldor did the same. Without warning, as Adariel was jerking an arrow from her quiver and aligning the arrow, Gil-luin reared. Squeezing her horse's ribs with her knees she fired, hitting two orcs with the one arrow. The gelding lowered himself back to four feet, and Adariel found that the orcs were all dead.  
  
Dead, yes, but accounting for several wounds on various men. Adariel herself was unscathed, save the old wound on her shoulder that had been reopened, but that was self-inflicted. Several of the men, however, had orc induced wounds, and orc wounds were typically poisoned.  
  
She dismounted and patted her horses sweat-streaked side. Wrinkling her nose in distaste she wiped her hand on her skirt as she turned toward the men to find Haldir looking furious.  
  
He thrust his sword into the ground and took a couple steps toward her. "What, pray, was that?" he snarled.  
  
Her temper flared. "What was what?" she demanded, anger clouding violet-blue eyes.  
  
"We were assigned to protect you, not to let you get yourself killed!"  
  
"Had I wanted, let alone deserved, this protection, I would have informed you!"  
  
"Then why did you say nothing in Lothlórien?"  
  
"Have *you* ever felt the need to argue with the Lady of Light?!"  
  
"You could have, at the very least, let us perform our duties!"  
  
There was something else behind the anger in his eyes, but Adariel couldn't see what it was. Concern, perhaps? She didn't know, and was too angry to care.  
  
Unable to think of a proper response, save hitting him (which would have ended up in nothing but injuries for her as he was clearly *very* strong), she whirled, grabbed her sheathed dagger from Gil-luin's back, then began to march toward the copse.  
  
"Where, exactly, do you think you're going?" he snarled.  
  
She didn't even grace Haldir with a glance back at him. "This way," she snapped.  
  
No one, thankfully, came after her as she marched furiously away from the men. 'Presumptuous, overbearing, stupid Marchwarden!' she thought furiously. 'Can you not see that I am very much, unfortunately, alive and well? What gives you the right to tell me what to do and what not to do? Nothing!'  
  
In her fury, she almost didn't hear the harsh, blood-choked, disgustingly gurgled cry of surprise from her left as she passed. Instinctively she whirled and took a step back, wincing as she pulled at her, newly reopened, shoulder wound. Realizing it was an orc and already outraged, she ripped her dagger its sheath.  
  
"You!" a half-dead thing choked out. "How did you escape?"  
  
She blinked, her fury half-forgotten. "Escape?" she repeated, confused.  
  
"We caught you nearly a week ago, slave! When we ambushed you and your stupid companions!"  
  
Shock forced her back a step, and she had to remind herself to breathe. "T- two companions?" she finally stuttered. "A man and a woman?"  
  
"Yes, you stupid-"  
  
It broke off with a dying hack, coughing up black blood as Adariel stumbled back, numb. A hand was laid on her shoulder. "Lady Adariel?" Rúmil asked, sounding rather concerned.  
  
"There is only one person in the world," she told them shakily, staring wide-eyed at the ground, "that I could possibly be confused with by an orc." Her eyes moved up to look at them, her anger long since forgotten and replaced by stunned numbness. "That person would be my twin; Aradalien."  
  
Stunned silence greeted the revelation, and Adariel, wanting nothing more than to dissolve into tears, realized that she couldn't remember how to breathe. Aradalien was alive? How could she be? Was this orc even telling the truth? Perhaps it was confusing her with someone else? *Was* her sister still alive? It seemed doubtful, but she could not forbear the feeble, guttering light of hope that suddenly lit within her. Who knew that a cruel, filthy, scum-of-the-earth orc would give her a shred of hope?  
  
Her hope was given to her by an orc. What did that say of her?  
  
"Adariel?"  
  
Her eyes, which had unconsciously moved back to the ground, moved back up to Rúmil. Violet-blue orbs moved from him to his brothers, save Haldir, whose eyes she avoided, to the others, and she was reminded that not all of the blood on them was orc blood.  
  
She shook her head to clear her thoughts, struggling with the need to wail in silent agony. "Someone please get my healing bag, and another start a small fire and fill one of the pans with water. As for the rest of you, bring your wounds to me."  
  
Soon Adariel was sitting on her knees near the fire Elfalas had built with her hair tied away from her face. She bent over Sûlthalion's forearm, which bore a deep gash from wrist to elbow from when he'd gone ahead just before the skirmish.  
  
She focused on her task dutifully, struggling with her mind to not let thoughts of her sister in. Sûlthalion didn't say anything, but a feeling of support seemed to radiate from him, and when she was completely through tending to him, he gripped her shoulder comfortingly before sending another over. It was the same way with all of them, up to and including Haldir's brothers, until all she had left to tend to was the marchwarden himself, who stood thirty yards away, leaning on a rock and looking toward the north, as impassive as ever.  
  
Adariel sighed, watching him. It wasn't that she didn't want to heal him; quite the opposite, in fact. But... after her behavior earlier, and what she felt like doing now... It wasn't embarrassing, necessarily, just... shameful, if it was the right word. Or perhaps it *was* embarrassing. She didn't know why she didn't want to approach him. Perhaps it was because she felt emotionally weak, and she didn't want the Marchwarden of Lothlórien to see her weak.  
  
But in the end, her tug of healer-responsibility won out, and before she knew it she held a warm, wet cloth, bandages, and a couple of different salves and was walking toward him. She stopped when she still had five yards to go, and he looked at her.  
  
"I should tend to that," she said, pointing to the cut on his upper right arm. Just above his left brow was a small cut, but other than those two he seemed all in one piece.  
  
He shrugged, turning his eyes back north as if he didn't have the least bit of regard for her healings. She stubbornly took this as consent and approached, crawled up on the rock and sat on it, then grabbed his arm.  
  
With a small blade she cut the stitching from where the sleeve met the shoulder and rolled down the sleeve to his elbow. She wiped the wound, which was short but deep, clean with her cloth, her nose inches from the wound - she always leaned much closer than required, so she wouldn't miss anything.  
  
"I wanted - want - to apologize," she said abruptly. "For my behavior earlier. It was... unbecoming." 'I could say something else not as nice about it,' she thought bitterly.  
  
She glanced up to see Haldir looking down at her, one brow raised skeptically.  
  
"Well, it was!" she said.  
  
"And what of my own behavior?" he asked neutrally.  
  
She paused, then continued her administrations. "Called for. I was unreasonable, and I attempted to deny you your responsibility. It was of the utmost irrationality on my part."  
  
"Denying me responsibility was irrational?"  
  
She looked up, surprised. "I've had times when it was my responsibility alone that kept me going." 'I will not mention that this is one of those times, since it is in no way your fault and because you don't need, nor, more than likely, do you *want* to hear my depressing tale.'  
  
Adariel looked back down as Haldir shook his head. "I shouldn't have yelled, anyway."  
  
She didn't reply, and he didn't continue. The silence was as decipherable as ever; completely *un*decipherable. It was more comfortable, though, and something in her almost smiled at that. She quickly and effectively squashed that something.  
  
She sprinkled an orc-poison antidote, just to be safe, then spread a thin layer of her minty-smelling salve, then bandaged the cut. She looked up. "Orophin!"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Get me the needle and thread that's in my pack, if you would," she called. Within a moment he held up a smaller, cloth bag.  
  
"Is it in this?"  
  
"Yes, just bring the whole thing here."  
  
He walked over to them, and she took the bag from the young sentinel. "Thank you."  
  
He grinned. "You're quite welcome, my Lady."  
  
She rolled her eyes and set to pulling out a needle and length of black thread. Once it was threaded she put the needle between her teeth and rolled up the sleeve, then set to work re-sewing it.  
  
After a few more moments of the baffling silence, Haldir asked softly, "Do you think that your sister may yet be alive?"  
  
She glanced up from her stitching, tied off the string, then bit the thread (feeling distinctly idiotic doing this so near the Marchwarden of Lórien's shoulder) and put the things away. She paused.  
  
"I know not," she replied, her voice softer than his. "I don't know what to think."  
  
Adariel shook her head, grabbed the cloth and a salve and crawled around behind him to better reach the scratch above his left brow. She leaned forward, inches from him, and gently cleaned it, doing her best to keep from causing the nasty sting that typically came from these wounds.  
  
"You seem to have contracted one of those vicious cuts that sting incessantly," she murmured absently. She put a bit of the salve on her right index finger and smoothed a very thin layer over the scratch. "As a healer, they are the worst, save mortal injuries. The patient makes more of a fuss over them than they do the multiples of other impairments that they could possibly contrive. They're attracted to children and warriors as wolves are drawn to prey, if that is an appropriate comparison."  
  
She sat back a few more inches to examine her handiwork with a critical eye, but was surprised to meet the icy blue eyes of Haldir instead.  
  
"I take it you've seen them often?"  
  
She swallowed, feeling the inklings of nervousness. "I have." 'Nervous for no apparent reason, Adariel?' an inner voice asked scathingly. 'Stop! No wonder you couldn't stand up to Dimalphion!'  
  
Adariel looked down, realizing that the voice was right. A hand entered her field of vision. Instinctively she took it, and Haldir helped her as she delicately removed herself from the rock. She released his hand and turned to gather her things, struggling with a blend of self-disgust, grief, and hope.  
  
Confused - not knowing what to think - she turned around to find that Haldir had waited for her. This only served to confuse her more; hadn't she been little more than an inconvenience to him from the start?  
  
At that moment, as they were walking back to the rest, she realized that she had done the exact same thing that Avarlammeniel or Nimrómen or Aradalien would have done: she had judged Haldir by his displayed behavior instead of trusting her instinct.  
  
Her instinct had never failed her, though she had ignored it before. And this, being one of those times, had only been the second. She could tell, almost immediately, if she could trust a person, or if they were good hearted, among other things. Adariel had always swore that entire personalities could be seen within the first five minutes of meeting. One's eyes could tell the world everything it wanted to know about one if one wasn't guarded. It wasn't something that her mother, father, or twin had, but her brother was passable. Lord Elrond could do the same, but the trait had not passed to his sons, nor to his daughter.  
  
Forcing Haldir's behavior, instinct, Elrond, and everyone and thing else from her mind, she went to Gil-luin and packed her things and slung them back over the gelding's back. Before she put the salve in her pack, however, she put a bit on the tips of her fingers on her left hand and smoothed it over her shoulder wound, then put the salve away.  
  
Suddenly, for no specific reason whatsoever, she thought of her niece and of the girl's mother. Adariel herself was in horrible shape over her brother's death, which meant that Noviel would be hit with the same pain three-fold. But El... El wouldn't be effected nearly so much, simply because she'd never been given the chance to know her father.  
  
Fighting a nearly overpowering sense to sob into Gil-luin's side, Adariel mounted and raised her hood to hide her face. Without words the small party continued on its journey as snow began to fall.  
  
^*^  
  
The clouds overhead were a cheerless steel gray when they reached the place where she and her siblings had been attacked. The area wasn't really that large, surrounded by the base of the mountain from the west, and smallish rocky hills from the other sides. At the northeast edge was the small group of tall rocks, and but a few yards away stood the lone dead tree, and at its feet, the body of Nurardaion.  
  
Adariel dismounted and walked toward the tree, leaving Gil-luin at the top of the east hill. The eyes of her companions were on her as they followed, but she didn't realize it.  
  
Snow drifted in large flakes around her as she knelt near the body. She reached out to gently brush the snow away, but paused, hesitating, then lightly pushed it away. The cloak covering him was the same russet red as the bow and quiver tied to Gil-luin, and was to Rivendell as the gray-green cloaks were to Lórien. Her hand was trembling, though she didn't notice, as she pulled away the Imladris cloak.  
  
Nurardaion's icy blue eyes, clouded by death, stared blankly at the gray sky above. His face was so uncharacteristically somber that it tore at her heart violently, ripping up what was left of it and then torching it until it was broken beyond repair. She reached out and closed her brother's eyes, then let her hand gently caress his brow. Adariel closed her nearly overflowing eyes, the movement causing a tear to fall down on ivory cheek.  
  
She pulled her hand away and stood, looking down at her brother's dead form, until she could no longer bear the pain. She turned away and walked toward the group of tall stone, and solitude.  
  
The young man that the Lady Adariel revealed to them when she pulled back the Rivendell cloak looked nothing like her. His eyes were icy, not the deep violet-tinted-blue that she bore, and instead of dark locks, his hair was pale blond. His appearance made it clear that he was of Lórien decent, despite the lack thereof in his sister.  
  
She knelt beside him for some time, and it seemed to Haldir that intense grief seemed to radiate from her. But the grief, though understandable to a point, was far more than what should be borne by anyone, let alone Adariel Morelen. It was enough to make even the hard-hearted Marchwarden of the North and West feel concern: That much anguish, felt by a single person, for any period of time, would end in only one way. Death.  
  
The Lady stood, and after a moment left their presence. Perhaps it was concern, perhaps it was lack of trust in Adariel to take care of herself in her current state (as in, maybe he feared suicide on her part), or perhaps it was simply duty, but Haldir turned to meet the eyes of his older brother, and nodded to him just enough to be seen by even Elven eyes.  
  
Rúmil, who seemed to know what was being requested of him, nodded only once and followed the Morelen. Orophin, however, who seemed to have suddenly matured greatly from his typical constantly-joking self, knelt beside the body in Adariel's stead, a thoughtful frown creasing his brow.  
  
"Haldir, look at this," he murmured.  
  
The marchwarden knelt, and saw what his brother wanted him to see: the end of an arrow, the feathers rather mangled, was half protruding from under the body. He frowned.  
  
"Help me turn him over," he said.  
  
Orophin nodded and gently levered the deceased, allowing Haldir to see what he wanted to see, and to pick up the arrow - half arrow - then jerk something out of the Rivendell-Elf's back, feeling somewhat disrespectful toward Nurardaion for doing so. Orophin lowered Nurardaion of Imladris back down and recovered him with the cloak as Haldir examined the things he'd retrieved.  
  
Apparently, they *were* arrows; the same one, in fact, simply broken in half, or so it seemed. The rather frightening thing was, they were arrow of Imladris, not orc arrows.  
  
^*^  
  
Well? And don't forget to check out my recommendations! 


	7. Rivendell

Jeez... this chapter took forever. I'm *reeeeaaaally* sorry about that. And it's horrid, too. The chapter, I mean. Grrr...  
  
Okay, my recomendations are:  
  
"Grey Skies" by K-da-great. It's already finished, so you don't have to wait for updates! And it's got Haldir! It's really good, but it's kinda sad... not sayin' why...  
  
"My Storm" by Equinus. It's pretty good so far, and I really think that it'll only get better.  
  
By the way, the song doesn't belong to me, either. It's written by Roma Ryan, performed by Enya. There, now no one can sue me. Ha!  
  
Lol, anyway, I'll let you continue with this pathetic installment of TDS. I'm off!  
  
^*^  
  
The Dark Star  
  
Part Seven  
  
Rivendell  
  
Adariel was sitting on a rock with her knees up to her chest when Rúmil found her, coming up behind her making absolutely no noise. Oblivious to him and to her steadily falling tears, Adariel sang in a surprisingly clear voice, believing that no one heard her.  
  
"Pilgrim, how you journey  
  
on the road you chose  
  
to find out why the winds die  
  
and where the stories go.  
  
All days come from one day  
  
that much you must know,  
  
you cannot change what's over  
  
but only where you go."  
  
It was a rarely sung song with a double meaning that few understood until they'd actually felt both sides. It was a song about journeying, yes, but that didn't necessarily mean that it implied the typical journeying. The journey of the soul to the Halls of Mandos could easily be fitted to this, with the right frame of mind; the only way to find out "why the winds die" would be to see it happen. The living couldn't see that.  
  
"One way leads to diamonds,  
  
one way leads to gold,  
  
another leads you only  
  
to everything you're told.  
  
In your hear you wonder which of these is true;  
  
the road that leads to nowhere,  
  
the road that leads to you.  
  
"Will you find the answer  
  
in all you say and do?  
  
Will you find the answer  
  
in you?"  
  
It was a song that was typically voiced by children who were just beginning to speak and needed the practice, completely and happily unaware of the double meaning of the words they sang. Kept in perfectly content inadvertence to the grip the words had on the hearts of many, flippantly throwing the words about, believing that, as immortals, they would never have to deal with the pain of death.  
  
He had once, a very long time ago, been one of those children, and he himself had never expected to be so involved with death, nor did he ever expect to meet someone such as Lady Adariel whose world had been torn to shreds by it.  
  
Of course, what child ever fought to find the depressing hidden meaning?  
  
"Each heart is a pilgrim,  
  
each one wants to know  
  
the reason why the winds die  
  
and where the stories go.  
  
Pilgrim in your journey  
  
you may travel far,  
  
for pilgrim it's a long way  
  
to find out who you are..."  
  
She looked down, and Rúmil continued forward. "Your words are voiced beautifully, my Lady, but are rather depressing" he commented.  
  
Adariel whirled, having not heard the Sentinel's approach. Once she saw who it was, however, she turned back around, letting her feet slide to dangle off the rock. "Depressing words for depressing times, Lord Rúmil." She sighed, watching the snow fall. "I learned the words as a small child, but I never realized their meaning. Their alternate meaning, I mean. It is rare that a young one believes that death will ever touch them, and so they sing, never considering that for all we do not die of age, though we do age in a mortal sense, we can still die."  
  
"No child should grow up thinking of nothing but death," he said gently as he came forward.  
  
"No child should grow up without a father," she countered with an air of grieving absence.  
  
"No one mentioned children without fathers," he said.  
  
She laughed bitterly. "You're right. But then, what does this make my niece? A dancing bear? The child has no father."  
  
Rúmil blinked. He remembered Adariel speaking of Nurardaion's wife and daughter, but hadn't really given it another thought. If Haldir or Orophin had been married with a young child, and both had died during an attack under circumstances similar to Adariel's, he would probably feel intense grief as well.  
  
'But her grief is beyond intense;' a quiet voice countered, 'it borders suicidal!'  
  
Ignoring the thought only because he knew she wouldn't yet be open to it, he continued forward, then leaned on the rock beside her. "You believe that is your doing?" he asked neutrally, choosing the subtle way of going about things. He had the funny feeling that bluntly telling her that her siblings' deaths were *not* her fault and she was blind for not seeing that fact wouldn't be very well received.  
  
"Yes," she whispered, and Rúmil fought to sigh in pity, and even a bit of frustration.  
  
"What could you have done? Had you stopped whatever happened from happening, you only would have died."  
  
She looked at him, and her gaze was surprisingly cold and harsh. "I should have stopped it," she snarled. "My sister has more friends than hairs on her head, and my brother is married with a child, and yet because of my cowardice both of them are gone." Suddenly he found her on her feet, and her glare was so totally opposite of her personality it was frightening. "And nothing can bring them back." Her grated snarl was the same, and before he could recover from his shock she whirled and marched back the direction from which she came.  
  
Rúmil sighed. Perhaps there was more behind the Lady's reaction than what appeared, but it seemed to him, though it was a somewhat far fetched concept, that she was *afraid* to let anyone but herself take the blame for her siblings' deaths. Maybe it was wishful - yes, wishful; he didn't want to think that any Elf would *want* to bring that sort of pain to themselves - thinking, to believe this, but somehow it made sense. Adariel Morelen was clearly not one to allow others to suffer in her stead, and assuming the blame for Nurardaion's and Aradalien's deaths kept most of the hurt from others. Hurt that should have been evenly distributed was placed squarely on her shoulders, and for all she had clearly brought it upon herself willingly, she was stumbling under the weight.  
  
^*^  
  
How *dare* he suggest that there was nothing she could have done?! *Everything* was her fault, there was no way around it! What could anyone could have done? Uncle Elrond hadn't been there, her 'second siblings' hadn't been there, no one had been there, the blame was hers, and hers alone! She would *not,* under *any* circumstances, attempt to shift the blame onto someone who didn't deserve it!  
  
Positively fuming at the prospect of evading what she felt she deserved, Adariel stormed through the gently falling snow back to the others. But she never expected them to be gathered around her brother's form, looking grim and rather confused.  
  
She froze, but her slight movement had been noticed; Haldir, followed by the others, looked up at her, and several suddenly looked rather awkward. Of course their commander didn't, he was never awkward; he was emotionless... to all appearances, anyway.  
  
Her thoughts weren't displayed on her face, and instead she simply stared at them. "What happened?" Adariel demanded.  
  
"My Lady, perhaps you should see this," Haldir said. His tone was odd. Well, perhaps not odd; it was puzzled. The odd thing was that Haldir of Lothlórien was never puzzled. Or, at least, Adariel had never seen him that way, and she found it hard to believe that the Marchwarden was confused often.  
  
Pushing that thought and her badly contained anger away, Adariel slowly approached them. Haldir held something out to her, which she took but very nearly dropped not half an instant later.  
  
The arrow head of the Rivendell bolt was bloodstained, and the thing was snapped in half. The feathers were mangled and dirty with flecks of blood. The frightening thing was that it was clearly not orc blood; it was Elven.  
  
Her hands began to shake as Adariel moved fearful eyes to the Marchwarden, for once not caring about her transparency. "Where did you find this?" she asked, voice trembling.  
  
"Your brother," he said simply, his voice quiet.  
  
She nearly let the arrows fall from her hand, but instead her fingers closed around them. Surely she hadn't... Her own brother... But she was always careful about aiming... Adariel cast her eyes downward, then squeezed them shut and asked in a stronger voice, "Where?"  
  
"His back."  
  
Her eyes snapped open. "His back?" Adariel repeated. How on earth...?  
  
"Yes," Haldir replied, his voice half an instant slower than normal.  
  
If she hadn't been severely instructed at a *very* young age that women did *not* curse, she would have started swearing enough to rival the crudest Man. Cursing her grief, her confusion, her guilt, every orc that had ever and would ever walk the face of the earth, and a particular Elf - and not the Marchwarden of Lothlórien. Because there was no way that she could have shot her brother, not in the back.  
  
But her guilt, grief, and confusion wouldn't leave it at that. Of course it wouldn't; she didn't deserve the peace of knowing without proof. She didn't deserve anything.  
  
"Let me see," Adariel said directly.  
  
Sûlthalion blinked. "What?" he demanded.  
  
"My Lady, is that wi-"  
  
"Let me see," she repeated, her voice lower and more commanding; a tone she rarely used.  
  
It wasn't a surprise that they all looked to Haldir for approval. But it was a disappointment. The absolutely (confusing...) infuriating Marchwarden seemed to believe what he felt was best for her was a sort of regulation that she should follow. And that was simply from pure duty! To be quite honest, Adariel would not have liked to see what he was like if he truly had some sort of feeling.  
  
But she was surprised when Haldir met her gaze, then suddenly said, "Do as you will, my Lady. I'll not stop you."  
  
Adariel ignored her trembling hands and the voice inside her that screamed that nothing good would come of this as she knelt beside her brother's form once more. Her resolve nearly crumbled at the sight of her brother's lifeless and pale face, but Adariel knew that she would reach no answers by crying and singing old children's songs.  
  
She reached out once more, fighting the nearly over wheeling urge to cry, which seemed to be an urge that attacked often. She swallowed and gently rolled her brother over, feeling like a monster for disrespecting him so.  
  
Realizing what had to be done, she let her healing training take over, and she studied the wounds in Nurardaion's back. The cut from the blade was there, on his right side, from his shoulder blade to the bottom of his rib cage, and deep enough to bleed incredible amounts but not deep enough to mean inevitable death. Probable death, yes, but not inevitable.  
  
The arrow wound, however, was right were his heart was supposed to be.  
  
Adariel lowered him back down numbly and stood, shocked to the core. "My Lady?" someone - she didn't notice who - asked, concerned.  
  
"It was the arrow. The arrow killed him," she murmured faintly.  
  
"But who shot it?" someone else asked.  
  
Adariel moved, half in a daze, toward where she and Aradalien had stood on the night of the attack. She turned and faced the place where Nurardaion had stood and murmured, "I stood here." Then she moved forward again, to where she'd caught him. She faced the direction Nurar had; her back was directly facing the pile of large rocks. "And Nurar stood here..."  
  
She whirled. "It came from the stones, didn't it?" she demanded.  
  
Haldir didn't respond, and neither did any of the others. But they didn't have to, she knew the answer.  
  
"Do you know of anyone who would want to see your brother dead?" Orophin asked.  
  
"Yes," was her grim response. "Yes, I do."  
  
^*^  
  
Six days later  
  
She'd spoken little since they'd come to the place where her brother had died, and had eaten even less. If they noticed (they were acting rather distracted, in fact, so it was doubtful), none of the men commented on this, of course; they left that to Haldir. Let *him* tell her that she was too thin, even for an Elf. Though she was at the very least half a foot shorter than any and all of them, she could still be quite intimidating if she wanted to be. The problem, however, was that Haldir himself didn't seem to notice. Whatever reverie had its grip on Adariel also seemed to have a grip on the Marchwarden, though he did actually eat.  
  
The sky over head was a depressing gray, and the mood of the clouds was mirrored in her eyes. Their vibrant color looked as if it had faded, but no one noticed that either; she kept her eyes from ever meeting anyone's, bar Gil-luin.  
  
She would meet the eyes of a horse, but not those of a fellow Elf. The irony.  
  
It couldn't be helped, she decided, when the thought that Noviel might never forgive her crossed her mind. And it would have been understandable. How could she expect someone to forgive her for deaths that she caused? Would Adariel forgive Noviel, if the roles were reversed? Yes, but that wasn't the point. Adariel herself deserved no forgiveness, and wouldn't be surprised if they banished her from the company of Elves until the end of the earth. It was no less than she deserved.  
  
But whatever it was that her Rivendell counterparts felt she deserved, she would know of soon. They would be arriving at Imladris within moments.  
  
Adariel knew the area around Rivendell almost as well as she knew the Elven-haven itself. Most of her younger years had been spent, after all, chasing and being chased by her friends and siblings and 'second siblings.'  
  
The naive innocence of her childhood was enviable. Her chastity hadn't nearly been compromised, and her siblings were as far from dead as Adariel herself was from joining a band of orcs. Responsibilities were next to nothing, and the most she had to worry about was making it home in time for dinner.  
  
Peering at the colorful forest around them dully, she wondered, where did it all go? When had she changed from child to adult, gaining all the troubles with it? She had gone from blissful child to happy yet incredibly busy adult to pathetic excuse of an Elf who had lost the will to live.  
  
Both changes had seemed so sudden. Adariel had gone to bed one night a child, then seemed to wake up the next morning the First Healer of Lord Elrond's infirmary, the Head Librarian of Rivendell's grand library, an assistant instructor at archery, an assistant midwife, occasionally a cook in the kitchens, and the one who would listen to anyone and everyone vent their problems, then do her best to help them. She had dedicated so much of her life to others, and the one time she did *not* do that, her siblings were killed.  
  
'Siblings?' she thought suddenly. 'Only Nurar is assuredly dead; you don't know what happened to Aradalien.'  
  
Adariel's throat and chest tightened, and once more she fought tears. 'If only I could just let them fall... But I must not. Those in my position are not permitted to cry.'  
  
Unconscious of what she was doing, Adariel moved forward until she was at the front of the small throng, lifting her chin stubbornly and blinking back the tears she refused to let fall.  
  
Everything seemed to slow as she entered through the archway that led into Imladris. The wind itself, that had been tossing her currently wavy hair, slowed, creating a strange sort of vacuum that stole her breath and blew her hair gently. The gray gown swirled. But everything abruptly stopped as she passed the entryway, and all movement within the Elven-city was included.  
  
Adariel walked forward enough to allow those following her to enter completely. The sentries around Rivendell - which Adariel had been too far in the possession of apathy to notice - had already reported the arrival of Elves coming in from the south, and from the gathering of Elves in the courtyard, all of whom were beaming at her, it seemed that Adariel and her siblings were expected.  
  
Celebnoviel was the first she noticed, holding little Elencaran, and with her stood Malfalothien, or Mal, the declared queen of the kitchens. Not far from them stood Arwen, flanked by her two brothers. Elrond gazed down at them from the steps. She never noticed the figure hiding in the shadows, watching her very breath.  
  
There were others, but Adariel couldn't seem to focus; they could have been orcs and she never would have known. There were children, though. "The children must go," she said quietly, and the joyous smiles fell to looks of concern.  
  
"Adariel?" someone queried. All of these people knew full well that she would never make children leave unless they absolutely had to...  
  
"They cannot see-" She broke off and her composure crumbled as someone ushered the children away, taking Elencaran with them.  
  
No sooner had they gone than the makeshift platform carrying the body of Nurardaion was brought forward just enough for it to be seen. There was a tormented cry from someone in the courtyard before her.  
  
Noviel stood staring, her hands over her mouth and her eyes wide with horror. She glanced at Adariel then sobbed and was gathered up Mal, who stood there, holding her and doing her best to comfort the severely distraught Noviel. Adariel squeezed her eyes shut, quite ready to collapse and never wake up.  
  
Standing behind her, Haldir saw her strength begin to crumble at the same time Elrond and his children did. A woman standing in the courtyard to Haldir's right let her hand fall slowly from her mouth. "Lady Adariel," she breathed, "what happened?"  
  
Haldir scowled darkly without realizing it. The 'What did you do?' undertone of *this* woman's tone was obvious, and uncalled for. Part of Lady Adariel's silence over he past several days suddenly became clear: Adariel was afraid of her people's reactions. So far, if he was any judge, they either didn't acknowledge her existence (bar the Lord of Rivendell and his children), or felt that she was to blame.  
  
Perhaps it was because not even Elrond and his family moved forward to greet and comfort Adariel, or perhaps it was the accusatory gazes that some of them held, but he stepped forward, as if to place a protective hand on her shoulder, but managed to smother the uncharacteristic urge, though he did not move back, remaining two steps behind her.  
  
A she-Elf to his left - Nurardaion's wife, unless he was mistaken - let out an anguished sob, and several Elves flocked to her as she struggled to keep her tears silent. One of the dark haired she-Elves turned and pointed at Adariel.  
  
"You!" she screeched. "You did this!"  
  
"No!"  
  
The cry came from the sobbing wife of Nurardaion, surprising them all. "This couldn't have been Adariel's doing, he is her brother!"  
  
"Your point?" the original Elf demanded icily. "We all know why she left in such a hurry-"  
  
"Really, can't you tell that the poor girl is grieving? You should retain accusations until *after* the accused is through mourning, should you not?"  
  
Upon seeing the speaker, Adariel took a step back without realizing it. The speaker came forward, looking far too casual for the situation. The man had dark hair, dark eyes, and a dark demeanor, his smug half smirk easy to dislike, particularly amongst so many tears. The smooth voice was dripping with sarcasm and ill intent, but to whom this was directed, Haldir was uncertain.  
  
His advance toward Adariel became more hunter-like; a predator nearing its prey. She stepped back another half step. "Of course," he continued, "there is always a chance that she is lying." Haldir heard her soft intake of breath, but the man before them paid no heed. "But that is doubtful."  
  
Adariel watched him, suddenly feeling trapped. He knew she was afraid. He always knew, nothing would change that. She stepped back again, subconsciously trying to place as much space between her and Dimalphion as possible, only to run into something warm and solid. Not realizing what she had backed into, she pressed herself against it, clearly terrified.  
  
Dimalphion saw who, exactly, Adariel had backed into, and stopped. Haldir couldn't decide if the gaze held contempt or curiosity, but soon the smirk reappeared. He nodded mockingly, said, "Lady Adariel," in parting, and turned on his heel to leave.  
  
Arwen rushed forward as Adariel stumbled forward. The Undómiel gripped the Morelen gently yet tightly as she made her way toward the Lord Elrond. Adariel looked up at him, then collapsed in his arms, the Elf Lord assuming the role of a father instead of counterfeit uncle as he helped her into the House.  
  
The two twins exchanged words, then one came forward as the other followed his father and sister. "I am Elrohir of Imladris," he said, offering his hand.  
  
Haldir gripped his forearm. "I am Haldir, and these are my brothers, Rumíl and Orophin."  
  
Elrohir smiled slightly. "You are renouned, Marchwarden." He sighed heavily as his gaze shifted to the covered form of Nurardaion. "He was like almost like a brother to me, to us." He looked up. "This way. Someone will clean him up. The memorial will be later."  
  
Haldir nodded and gestured to his men to follow him as he followed the son of Elrond.  
  
^*^  
  
Ick ick ick!!! That was horrible! I'm soooo sorry about the wait, too. Give me an honest assessment; how terrible is this chapter? Be honest!  
  
- Hugs from  
  
Carlee 


	8. Memorial

Happy Independence Day, even to you who aren't American! I love this holiday. It's right up there with Christmas, Easter, and St. Patrick's Day. And, in honor of one of my favorite holidays, a new chapter! (Partially to make up for the wait for part seven... but also because it's the day that it is.) :-}  
  
I must say that this chapter was much more fun to write; quite frankly, I'm getting tired of a grieving Adariel, because it's so opposite her normal self. (I've known Adariel for quite some time, in case you can't tell, lol.) It's fun to even make her get all waspish! shakes head I'm pathetic, aren't I?  
  
^*^  
  
The Dark Star  
  
Part Eight  
  
Memorial  
  
Adariel had changed into a black velvet gown with silvery gray embroidery at the scoop neckline, sleeve hems, and the skirt hem. Her black veil was held in place with a circlet that was more of a pale gray than silver, and her dark hair framed her face under the veil. Somehow, someone had pulled up properly somber attire for the Lothlórien visitors.  
  
She stepped forward slowly, nearing the large stone platform on which laid her brother, wearing dark velvet, his face stern and his eyes closed, looking very much the opposite of his normal, cheery self. Very much the opposite of his *living* self.  
  
Normally she would have approached after her parents, with her sister. But her parents were long since gone, and her sister's fate unknown, and so she neared Nurardaion's body totally alone. Celebnoviel would approach behind her with Elencaran, and behind them, Elrond, Arwen, Elladan, and Elrohir. Then, of course, came friends, more distant relative, and the end was reserved for those who didn't truly know the deceased, just wanted to pay their respects.  
  
The technicalities helped at first, but soon there were no more technicalities to think of, and she was hit with the awful truth:  
  
Nurardaion of Imladris, son of Nimrómen and Avarlemmeniel, was dead. She had known this for some time, but standing near the large pulpit made of cold, hard stone, wearing the dark velvet mourning gown as the gentle wind tossed about her gown, veil, and hair, standing in her home as she stared at his unmoving form, made it real. All at once she couldn't pretend that this was just a horrible nightmare.  
  
Everything in her world was extra sharp, extra real. Every gaze, from the impassive ones to the sympathetic to the outright pitying, were like knives that were unwittingly being thrust hilt-deep into her conscience, and every sob was another stone to the weight of her guilt.  
  
Adariel longed to stop, turn, and hide within the circle of protection given her by her 'second family,' but somehow fought the impulse, knowing that she had no right to request protection. Celebnoviel didn't run and hide, and she must have felt ten-fold of Adariel's own grief. And so she instead stepped forward, lifting her veil, until she was next to the pulpit.  
  
Instinctively she reached out and stroked his brow. Nurar wasn't supposed to by lying there. In fact, the three were supposed to still be in Lórien. But what was supposed to have been, wasn't. And it all came down to the choices of Adariel.  
  
Had she been in the mood for even sardonic laughter, she might have let out a sarcastic laugh. Had she not sent the horses away, and with them her supplies, Nurardaion could have been alive, leading the hunt for Aradalien; she had the skill and supplies for treating mortal wounds, so long as they were treated immediately. But as it was, she *had* send the horses away.  
  
It had been for the best, or so she had thought at the time. The orcs would have killed the horses first; they were not only easy prey for the monsters, but the death of Gil-luin and the others would have cut off the Elves' escape totally. At least with the horses gone temporarily, Adariel had thought, not only would they be able to get away eventually, but their horses would still have been alive in the first place. And so she had freed them as soon as she could.  
  
Stupid move. Though she hadn't thought of it at the time, with perfect hindsight Adariel realized that they probably had had enough time to make a narrow escape... if they'd had the horses. Not only that, but she also realized, with perfect hindsight, all of the horses would more than likely have been able to defend themselves for at least a short time, while the three siblings gained the upper hand.  
  
Unbidden and unnoticed by Adariel, a single tear slid down her cheek, but her tears were not the uncontrolled sobs that she had longed to release for so long. They were the gentle trickle of those who felt as if they couldn't, or shouldn't, shed tears.  
  
Knowing that she had to move, Adariel pulled her hand away and folded both in front of her as she moved around to the head of the stony pulpit, instead of traditionally moving to stand in the background while the others moved forward in their turn. Roughly a yard from the head of the platform, she stood as if made of stone herself, staring absently at the platform as the occasional tear slid slowly down her cheeks.  
  
Noviel came forward and after her turn, watched Adariel worriedly for a moment before taking her place in the background.  
  
And thus Adariel stood until there was no one left, and once again she felt alone. Arwen had touched her arm earlier, but she had vaguely shook her head and waved the Undómiel away. But finally she relented, and walked back the House of Elrond to eat dinner with her 'second family,' a dinner she hardly even looked at.  
  
^*^  
  
Uncomfortable in borrowed clothes and wondering why he hadn't already made arrangements to leave Rivendell with the morning's first light, Haldir wandered through the gardens, looking both absent yet purposeful; the Marchwarden of Lórien never lost control over his mind enough to look absent minded, never lost his control.  
  
Suddenly realizing what, exactly, he was doing as he turned a corner with the small path, Haldir made to turn, not exactly comfortable with wandering a place that wasn't his home, when he found that he had, somehow, found his way to Nurardaion's memorial place.  
  
The moon also revealed to him that he wasn't alone. A dark figure, whose clothing fluttered in the breeze, was standing at the head of the pulpit, looking very much like a stone statue, so much was the lack of movement. He couldn't guess who it was; he already knew.  
  
He approached carefully, as if he was almost afraid she was realize who neared her and would turn and run. Soon he was standing near the platform, and Adariel had yet to move.  
  
"It doesn't due to dwell on death, my Lady," Haldir suddenly said quietly, as if he was afraid to disturb the silence any more than he dared.  
  
"No one need concern themselves with what I dwell on," she replied vaguely, just as quiet as Haldir had been.  
  
"Apparently, you cannot see what I can," he pointed out delicately, his voice still low. "Lord Elrond and his children are clearly concerned, as are many others. Lady Celebnoviel-"  
  
"I deserve nothing from her," she said suddenly, though her voice was hardly above a whisper. "I deserve nothing from anyone."  
  
Haldir frowned. Were her thoughts so clouded by guilt that she had yet to see that which was obvious? "Do you honestly believe that?" he asked, almost disbelievingly.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"I do not," he answered bluntly. "Taking appropriate blame is one thing, my Lady, but taking all blame when not all blame belongs to you is another entirely."  
  
Suddenly she whirled. "What do *you* know of the circumstances? Nothing!" she snapped.  
  
Haldir drew himself up instinctively. "In that, you are correct," he replied stiffly. "But I do know that there was no possible way for you to be entirely to blame for his death, not unless you killed him yourself. Which I find, my Lady, very hard to believe."  
  
"You, Marchwarden, do not realized that nearly all of the circumstances were in my power!" Adariel retorted.  
  
"And you do not realize, Morelen, that there were other factors that partook in this," Haldir said impatiently. Yes, she was blind, but she wouldn't be so for long!  
  
"Really?" she demanded harshly. The voices of both had long since abandoned the reverent quietness, and were now swiftly nearing argument level. "And what may those be, if I may be so bold as to ask?"  
  
"Did you know that orcs would attack?" he asked roughly, but he didn't wait for an answer, providing it himself. "No. Did you fire the arrow that was your brother's death stroke? No. Did you cause your sister to disappear? No."  
  
"Did I refuse an escort? Yes," she snapped, uncharacteristically snarling once more, just as she had to Rumíl. "Did I run from Imladris so quickly that I didn't bother listening to the scouts' reports of orc-activity? Yes. Did I make the wrong decisions at the wrong time? Yes. My brother was needed, and I failed him!"  
  
"And you are not?" Haldir demanded harshly. "Despite whatever you may believe, I am not blind, Lady Adariel Morelen. You are important to these people, but quite clearly you *are* blind, if you cannot see it. Or did you really think that you survived that attack merely by chance?"  
  
Despite the veil over her face, she looked rather astonished, as if she hadn't thought of the idea, and Haldir took his chance while she was still speechless. "Simply because you *believe* that you're at fault does not immediately mean that you truly *are* to blame," he continued, once again quiet. "And many are afraid that if you don't realize who and what you are to the Elves of Imladris soon, you'll never remember. Then you'd be lost to them forever."  
  
A profound silence rang clearly after he'd finished, and suddenly Haldir found himself wishing that he'd said nothing, yet at the same time wishing that there was more he could say. There was one thing that was painfully clear even to Haldir himself:  
  
If Adariel continued in this way, she would eventually kill herself with grief.  
  
"How do you know this?" she asked quietly, sounding thoroughly stunned.  
  
He graced her with a rare semi-smile. "As I said previously, my Lady, I am not as blind as you may believe me to be."  
  
She looked away, then said after a moment. "Apparently so, Marchwarden. My... my apologies for my rudeness. It was uncalled for. Now, Lord Haldir, if I may beg your pardon, I have an urgent matter I need to attend to."  
  
And with that she curtsied slightly and left, the wind tossing about the gown and veil as she disappeared into the darkness.  
  
^*^  
  
She was needed? Thought hadn't occurred to her. But was she *truly* needed, like Haldir claimed? Adariel wasn't sure, and she wasn't about to ask. Perhaps she was, what then? The thought that she might actually *need* to remain in Rivendell, for the good of its people, had never crossed her mind in the slightest.  
  
She approached Rumíl, who sat before Elladan, on the other side of a chess board, and said quietly, "Lord Rumíl, could I speak with you for a moment?"  
  
Elladan grinned at her as Rumíl did, and the Sentinel stood. Adariel led him away from Elladan and the chess board, gathering herself. She turned to face him squarely, as if to prove her sincerity.  
  
"I apologize for what I said to you near Moria," she told him quietly. "You were in no way deserving of my comments, and by all rights should have buffeted me in some way." Well, striking her in some what was, more than likely, something her mother would have done.  
  
"You needn't apologize. You felt the need to defend yourself, and you did. Anyone else would have done the same, no one can blame you for it. Though I feel that I must add that there are very few people who would strike your for so small a reason, least of all myself," he told her, not unkindly.  
  
She frowned self-deprecatingly. "Perhaps you should have; you could have done me a favor and knocked me into a state that at least *resembled* sensibility," she said dryly.  
  
To her pleasure (and shock), Rumíl laughed. "You needn't bother," he replied, waving her offer away. "But I do have a chess gave to win, so I'm afraid I'll have to beg your pardon and request your company at another time."  
  
She gave him a smile. "Of course."  
  
Adariel turned as he went back to Elladan and his game, the smile quickly fading. Confusion, grief, guilt, it all swirled around until her mind was little more than a wrung cloth, and so Adariel went to her waiting chambers, changed into nightclothes, and retired early.  
  
^*^  
  
Adariel looked very much the opposite of her 'uncle' Elrond in her dove gray, cotton gown, her hair half pulled back and braided and twisted into elaborate shapes at the back of her head while two locks fell down in front of her ears to frame her face. Her 'uncle,' however, wore robes in colors that reminded Adariel strongly of a clear day in mid-winter, full of whites and pale blues, the darkest being a pretty cerulean blue.  
  
She sat on the opposite side of the table, eating - or rather, picking at - her breakfast, their silence companionable.  
  
"Uncle," she said suddenly, her eyes not leaving her plate, "am I needed here?"  
  
"Of course," Elrond replied, as though it was obvious. "Why do you ask?"  
  
"No reason," Adariel replied, sidestepping the question rather clumsily, but well enough to get by. "I was just wondering."  
  
Elrond smiled at her. "Must I list your credentials? Lead Healer, Head Librarian, assistant midwife, unofficial care-taker of the children, aunt, friend, sister-by-marriage, daughter-"  
  
Adariel couldn't help a small, soft laugh. "Uncle, you know that my parents have long since gone across the sea."  
  
His smile was bittersweet, but when she blinked, not quite believing what she saw (it wasn't exactly a common response to such a statement), the look had left his face by the time her eyes were opened once more.  
  
"All the same, my dear," he continued, refilling her glass of water for her, "you are much to many here. Of course you're needed."  
  
Adariel didn't reply, sipping from her glass thoughtfully instead. She had to wonder, would her brother have wanted her to waste herself away with grief and guilt? It was highly doubtful; he was such an practical person that she doubted he would have been happy with *that* arrangement for an instant. As for Aradalien-  
  
Aradalien. She was still missing!  
  
"Elrond, what about Aradalien?" she asked suddenly. "We never found her..."  
  
The Elf-Lord's face swiftly went from congenial to contemplative and stern. "I'll send out a search party of some kind." He paused, and his expression softened. "You realize, that we may be... too late, don't you?"  
  
She nodded, though she looked as if it was one of her worst fears. "Yes, I realize that." She hesitated a moment, then said, "I want to be apart of the search party."  
  
"Out of the question, Adariel," firmly, but not unkindly. "I'll not have you suffer the same fate as Aradalien."  
  
She fought to roll her eyes. Why Elrond never said 'your twin' or 'your sister' was beyond her. But it *was* rather odd, because she had *never* heard him say it. Not once in her entire existence.  
  
"I would be with others, not alone. Several others, in fact," she protested, but she knew it was a lost cause; once Elrond put his foot down, there would be little one could to change his mind.  
  
Instead of replying, the Elf-Lord stood, walked around the table, and took both of her hands in his. "Morelen, I know that you wish to help, but I cannot risk you being gravely wounded or worse." He sounded genuinely concerned, and he was, but Adariel would only grudgingly admit it.  
  
Adariel sighed. "I know. Though you can't blame me for trying."  
  
He grinned at her. "No, I can't," was the quiet reply.  
  
Adariel paused thoughtfully, then asked, "How *are* things at the infirmary?"  
  
^*^  
  
Adariel was reorganizing the shelf of herbs that were antidotes for poisonous plants when light footsteps entered the infirmary. True, it took very strong poison to injury, let alone kill, and Elf, but being prepared never hurt. Children in particular were prone to accidentally eating the wrong sort of berry or whatnot.  
  
She looked up to see Celebnoviel standing in the doorway and looking rather awkward and apprehensive, Elencaran wrapped in blankets in her arms.  
  
Reasonably anxious herself, Adariel rocked back onto her heels, a streak of dust on her right cheek, as she looked up at her sister-by-marriage. Neither looked away, though both wanted to, until Noviel finally said, with slightly overbright eyes, "He loved you, you know. For all you and Aradalien were twins, he still looked to you as his baby sister who needed protecting."  
  
It was that comment, bred of pure intentions, that was just short of Adariel's undoing. Her throat locked and her chest tightened, but the worst constriction was the band around her heart, squeezing so tightly she thought it might burst.  
  
Adariel shook her head, forcing a watery smile onto her face. "However much he loved me, he loved you ten-fold. You and El," she added, glancing at her niece before meeting the eyes of the girl's mother once more.  
  
To her astonishment, Noviel walked over and knelt beside her on the floor. "Perhaps," she said quietly, "but you were always special. You would have had to hear him talk about you to truly grasp it."  
  
She gave a chuckle, but it was just as watery as her smile, but her grin *did* solidify slightly. "Me? You should have heard him talk about you and El; eventually the men in his unit learned to block him out, or so I've heard."  
  
Noviel smiled back, then handed Adariel her niece. "She's missed you. I can tell." Adariel looked at her rather skeptically, and so Nurardaion's wife informed her, "Maternal instinct. Which is something that you have, believe it or not."  
  
Adariel wrinkled her nose at Noviel at the tease, but smiled as she did so. "I only have 'maternal instinct' because of all the examples given to me as I was growing up."  
  
"Because your mother seemed to lack said instinct," Noviel finished, but suddenly her rather teasing expression became concerned and almost desperate. "I've heard... rumors, that you've been blaming yourself for... about Nurardaion. Please, don't do that. You should have heard him before you left, going on about you offering to go out on your own. He was dead set on protecting you, to the point that he told me that I may have to go with you, but in the end we decided that it wouldn't be good for El. You never forced him to leave, Adariel. He chose to go on his own."  
  
"I would have killed him myself had he brought you and El," she said quietly, staring at the ground. "Your safety - yours and El's - would have been in extreme jeopardy. I would never have stood for that, particularly since El is so young."  
  
"Precisely the reason he told me to stay."  
  
Adariel didn't reply, and Noviel didn't continue. Both sat in silence, until El cooed up at her aunt, who seemed to come suddenly out of her reverie. But after a moment she reluctantly relinquished the child back to her mother. But Noviel hesitated, then said, "So long as we're here, is there anything we can do to help."  
  
Her smile grew slowly, but in the end was the brightest grin anyone had seen from her in nearly a month. Though Adariel had originally intended to spend the day alone, the sudden prospect of company seemed to make the day seem less like a chore, which was actually the exact opposite of what her tendencies had been as of late. As such, she wasn't at all inclined to risk her friendship with Noviel, particularly since the she-Elf didn't seem to blame her for her husband's death.  
  
"This area of the infirmary seems to have fallen into a... less than desirable state, since my departure, and I could very well have use for aid to help get it back up to working order."  
  
Noviel beamed at her, stood, and said, "I'll start with the personal chambers, then?"  
  
^*^  
  
Roughly two hours later, Adariel had decided that perhaps things were nearly back to normal. Or perchance it was because she was too busy to grieve or send herself through austere journeys of guilt. Either way, when a soft knock brought her from rehanging curtains that had recently been shaken free of dust, she was rather surprised.  
  
"What, pray, is going on in here?" Elrohir teased her, clearly attempting to remain lighthearted for her benefit. (Surprising herself, Adariel found that she appreciated it.) "Have you sent my father's infirmary into a severe state of disarray again?"  
  
"Of course," she quipped, playing along. "What else might I do here? Heal?"  
  
"Surely not!" Elrohir exclaimed in mock surprise. Catching sight of Noviel, he asked sternly, "Are you keeping this she-knave in hand, Mistress Celebnoviel?"  
  
"Naturally," she replied, not missing a beat.  
  
But Elrohir quickly sobered. "I'm needed in the courtyard; the search party is leaving momentarily."  
  
Adariel dropped the second set of curtains and spun to face him dead on. Elrohir nodded to them both and proceeded down the corridor, but Adariel followed swiftly, Noviel doing the same.  
  
Noviel went over with the 'Queen of the Kitchens,' Mal, who also happened to be her mother (Mal was a whirl wind when baking and creating food; Adariel had learned everything she knew from her.) Mal took a hold of her grandchild as Adariel went to stand beside Arwen.  
  
"I take it," she said with the hint of a smile, "that Celebnoviel isn't as upset with you as you would have thought?" Adariel stuck her tongue out at her, and Arwen did the exact same in return.  
  
Back in his own clothes (and quite thankful for that), Haldir stood near the entry way as the other members of the search party said their good-byes. None of the three had really planned on joining the hung for Aradalien, but it made sense that they did; they were already this far involved in the family of the Morelen, they may as well help.  
  
But when Adariel came out into the courtyard, followed by Celebnoviel, Haldir couldn't help but feel a bit pleased with himself, though he didn't outwardly show it. She was smile, and although it wasn't a big smile, it was a smile nonetheless, and something told him that all that blather he'd told her the night before had actually had an impact.  
  
Adariel had said that the only person she could possibly be confused with was Aradalien, but as she stood next to Arwen Undómiel, he couldn't help but feel that she had been mistaken. Yes, he'd never seen Aradalien, but the resemblance between the Adariel and the Evenstar was rather remarkable.  
  
That thought faded as Adariel's smile did, however, and was replaced by a look of fear-bordering-terror when she was once more approached by that Elf - what had his name been? - Dimalphion.  
  
"Really, my Lady, first you were grieving, and now your childish. Do you intend to keep everyone guess as to the emotions you have toward your brother's death and sister's disappearance?"  
  
She paled and moved back a step, but Arwen gripped her arm reassuringly, glaring at him. It was then, as Dimalphion's smirk turned into a full-fledged malicious grin, that Haldir realized that he knew Adariel was terrified of him. The truly sickening part of it was that he relished in it, basking in her fear of him like a snake in the sun.  
  
Elladan and Elrohir both came up to flank the two Elf-maidens, and if harsh looks could kill, Dimalphion would have died twice over.  
  
"Dimalphion," Elladan said coldly, "I believe you have better places to be. Or did you not understand what we told you last night?"  
  
Elrohir took a threatening step forward. "If we find you near Adariel - or anyone close to her - again, you won't live to see the light of another day."  
  
He glared at them both, the gave a mocking bow. "As you wish," and then as gone.  
  
The relief on Adariel's face at his leaving was almost frightening. "Why," she said, her words oddly forced, "can he not just leave me alone? Has he not done enough?"  
  
"Because he can elicit a response from you," Arwen answered. "Do not give him a response and he'll not bother you."  
  
"That's a rather difficult task, believe it or not," she snapped. "*You* try to remain emotionless after... what he did."  
  
"It's all right, Adariel," Elrohir said. "He come near you again and we'll make good on our promise, don't worry."  
  
Elladan and Elrohir both nodded to them and went to join the rest of the search party assembled before them. Adariel shook her head.  
  
"I may have expected something like that from Elrohir, but from Elladan as well? Elladan isn't nearly so rash as his twin."  
  
"He can be," Arwen pointed out, but Adariel's attention was already lost. Not far from where she stood, amongst the rest of the search party, stood the Marchwarden, looking quite ready for travel.  
  
Adariel wasn't sure what she was supposed to feel about that. She was grateful, certainly, but there was something else there. Puzzlement? Doubtful; that was probably just an offspring of her own confusion. Then what was it? Or perhaps the more pressing question was, did she want to know?  
  
Feeling her eyes, Haldir looked up, but she didn't look away. She nodded ever so slightly, and after a moment he nodded back, and Adariel hoped that he'd received the message she'd been trying to convey:  
  
'Thank you.'  
  
^*^  
  
That chapter was really fun to write! Wow... Personally, I thought it was written much better than part seven. Probably because I didn't have to drag myself through the heaviest grief I've ever seen, let alone written about! There'll probably be a major time lapse at the beginning of the next chapter; Haldir and co. will probably be gone about a month, and that month would be pretty boring to read about, now wouldn't it? Well, I've taken enough of you guys' time, so I'm off! Remember to tell me what you think!  
  
Love and hugs from  
  
Carlee 


	9. Aradalien

Jeez!! I'm really sorry about the wait; I rewrote this thing so many times! I stopped counting at five. I'm obsessive compulsive or something, I dunno... Anyway, sorry about the wait, and I hope you enjoy!  
  
^*^  
  
The Dark Star  
  
Part Nine  
  
Aradalien  
  
The passing of a month found Adariel in a dire state. To keep herself from falling back into despair, she kept herself incredibly busy, dashing throughout Rivendell like an arrow from a bow. Soon her impossibly busy schedule spilled into the night hours as nightmares began keeping her awake and thoughts of self-loathing crept into the hours she would lie awake attempting to stave off the bad dreams. Rest soon became a second priority under forcing the guilt and grief out of her head.  
  
She knew all too well that this pace would eventually exhaust even the most enduring Elf, but Adariel finally regained herself enough to realize that to start back on the path she'd been on would only end in death, and despite her self-loathing, she did not want to die. As it was, she wasn't supposed to in the first place; she was, after all, immortal, immune to age and disease.  
  
These depressing thoughts, however, were not on her mind mid-morning on a cloudy yet calming day as she helped in the kitchens. And although she wasn't a novice at the culinary arts, she had still managed to spread a thin layer of flour across her navy blue-clad upper torso and across her nose and cheekbones. A small streak of the stuff ran over her left brow, made when she had run the back of her hand across her forehead.  
  
Her hair was pinned back precariously, and the heat from the ovens and fires made little wisps of hair stick out at odd angles. She was flicking at a small lock that had fallen over her right eye when the calm was shattered by the sound of a door slamming open.  
  
Many of the women cried out as Adariel whirled to find a young man - a boy, really - of an Elf leaning on the door frame and breathing heavily.  
  
"Mistress Adariel!" he panted. "The... search party-"  
  
He didn't bother finishing, given the fact that she was already racing out the door. Had the boy not been so obviously exhausted, her stomach wouldn't be writhing: Something was wrong. They wouldn't have sent for her so urgently if all was well, and she knew this. She dreaded what she would find.  
  
Her skirts were clutched in her fists as she entered the courtyard, and her heart leaped into her throat. The injuries on those she saw first alone were numerous, several severe, and many were old and touched with infection. But that held her attention for little more than an instant.  
  
A frighteningly thin figure of average height was being carried by two of Elrond's personal assistants, who were more like errand-runners than healers. Battered, bruised, dirt and blood streaked, the Elf was hanging to life by a thread. Dark hair was matted and tangled, and ivory skin was marred by an amount of injuries that shocked and alarmed even the most seasoned of healers. Yet even through all that, Adariel still recognized her.  
  
Aradalien.  
  
The two Elves carrying her rushed into the closed off wing of the infirmary, and Adariel took a step to follow, instantly reviewing her knowledge of orc-poison antidotes.  
  
"Adariel!" someone cried, and she came to her senses. She nodded vaguely, swallowing, and waved the Elves to another part of the infirmary.  
  
"Go to the main healing hall of the west wing!" she called above the noise of frightened Elves that had just come to see what was happening. And though she turned and started toward the wing she'd ordered them to, she couldn't help a glance toward the closed off wing.  
  
But she had no choice. She had to trust her uncle; she had her own duties to perform. And each and every one of those Elves would be back to normal as soon as Elvenly possible if she had any say in it!  
  
The worst Elf bore a deep but short head injury, a long and deep slash on his left forearm, a gash to the stomach (though thankfully he hadn't actually taken a blade to the stomach; that was one of the most difficult to heal, and more often than not the victims died from their belly wound), and a broken right wrist.  
  
Despite the dirt and blood streaked across his face, she still recognized him; he had been one of her brother's closest friends. "Maedhros," she murmured, fighting panic at the thought that it may have been too late. "Maedhros, do you hear me?"  
  
Blue eyes that were slightly out of focus opened and peered up at her. "I believe so," he muttered vaguely, and relief washed over her. "If not, then my dreams are becoming more real that reality itself. You are Adariel?" He asked it as if he were seeking verification that she was who he thought she was.  
  
"I am," Adariel replied, growing more relieved by the moment. Not only was he thinking clearly, for the most part, but he recognized her; that meant that the blow to the head wasn't as severe as it looked.  
  
She finished Maehdros, and moved on, and soon all of her patients became a blur of blood, orc poison, and injuries. Automatically through with one, she moved to the next, until when she finally moved after treating Sûlthalion, there was no one sitting down.  
  
The interruption in her pattern surprised her, and she started at the spot for a moment before realizing that she *wasn't* through, the Elf was simply moving around to all the others, and had yet to be treated.  
  
This Elf, of course, was none other than Haldir, which she realized instantly, given the fact that he was stubbornly last. But she was in no mood for heroics as her fear for her sister made her cross, and thus it was with a scowl that she made her way over to where he was speaking to an Elf she paid no heed to and grabbed his hand.  
  
"If you please, Marchwarden," she said grumpily as she started to pull him back toward the bed, "if you wish to be treated, you must be where I can do so; standing around and talking to those already healed does not qualify."  
  
She released his hand (rather hastily, because his palm was oddly warm against her hand, and her own limb tingled slightly, a feeling she wasn't exactly welcome to at the moment) and pointed to the bed. "Sit," she ordered shortly.  
  
Adariel looked him over with a critical eye. There was a gash over his chest, and a smaller one on his shoulder, and he had clearly taken a blade to the thigh. She shook her head.  
  
"None of you wore armor!" she cried aggravatedly as she turned gathered her supplies. "Not one! It *does* have a use! It was not invented to simply look intimidating!" She set turned and set them down on the bed, only to find him watching her blandly. Her throat locked; he was impassive, yes, that was his nature, but there was a difference between impassive and bland.  
  
She did not like the bland.  
  
She swallowed whatever cross words she had decided to utter and asked, her voiced softened a bit, "Are any poisoned?"  
  
He gestured vaguely toward his left thigh, and Adariel couldn't help the wave of fear that washed through her. A poisoned thrust wound. She ensnared her bottom lip between her teeth, looking determined, as she mentally made a list of the possible poisons that could have been used. It was a list that was fresh in her mind, however, and a frighteningly long one. The thought made her stomach do a somersault.  
  
She thunked his unwounded shoulder lightly with the back of her hand. "Off," she commanded shortly, then turned to grab miscellaneous poison antidotes. After grabbing several - more than she normally would have; the fact that it wasn't simply a gash making her nervous - she turned back and moved to Haldir's left side and knelt on the floor.  
  
Deftly Adariel yanked a small knife from is sheath. She looked up at him briefly and murmured, "Your modesty is the least of my concerns at this moment." She cut a small hole in the fabric, then resheathed the knife, grabbed his hand, and placed it on her shoulder. "Squeeze if it helps," she said distractedly.  
  
With that she gripped the cloth at the cut she had made and ripped it brutally, tearing it away from the wound. The hand on her shoulder, however, only barely tightened its grip; had she not been waiting for it, she would never have noticed it. It was then that she realized that his bland expression was not because he was listless. Or, at least, not entirely for that reason. The Marchwarden was struggling to hid how much pain he truly was in.  
  
This she liked even less.  
  
As she wiped the injury clean with a damp cloth as gently as she could, she fought the urge to snap at him. 'Stupid Marchwarden,' she thought grumpily. 'You needn't play hero.' She grabbed another cloth and an antidote, but paused and looked at the crystal bottle of clear liquid.  
  
Since he had taken a blade to the leg, and not just a gash, it would be better to apply it directly to the wound. But what caused her hesitation was the fact that she had no way of knowing which toxin had been used. The remedial she held was the cure for three of the most widely used poisons, but occasionally they used a different one. Using two antitoxins either made both useless, or combined made a mixture worse than what was being treated.  
  
Deciding that using the one that took care of three of the most popular poisons would be for the best, Adariel bit her lip anxiously without realizing it and, after pulling out the stopper, sprinkled the stuff over the wound. Neatly she put on a salve and bandaged it, then struggled to her feet and sat on the edge of the bed. As ordered, Haldir had removed his shirt and tunic already, though she doubted that they could be salvaged. Both the gashes on his chest and shoulder were quickly treated, and Adariel stood, pushing her hair back wearily.  
  
She sighed, knowing that, even in his uncharacteristically placid state, he would not take her orders well, but also knowing that letting him get away with not following them would more than likely make him worse, and possibly kill him. And so she tilted his face and met his eyes sternly, but kept her voice kind.  
  
"You'll need to remain here for a few days. It will aid..."  
  
Adariel let her voice fade: Haldir was glaring at her again, but he said nothing. Exasperated, she rolled her eyes and sat down on the edge of the bed once more.  
  
"Listen to me, Marchwarden," she said, with the perfect blend of severity and compassion that was characteristic to most, if not all, healers. "In all honesty, there is no way of knowing doubtlessly that I have used the correct antitoxin, and thus letting you leave would be very dangerous, and possibly even fatal. As it is, and you will loathe me for this, you are clearly exhausted, and I'll *not* have you worsening your condition by gallivanting throughout Rivendell. It is best that you remain where someone may watch to assure that you don't leave us as you rest. I do not ask for you to like or agree with me, nor to I ask you to become meek and worrisome. I only ask for you cooperation." She smiled wryly. "Despite whatever you may believe, I am not completely unconcerned for your welfare, Haldir of Lórien."  
  
His glared lessened, if not much, but he did sigh and nod. It was with relief that she helped him to lie back and brought up the blankets, conveniently not noticing his reinitiated glare; he didn't appreciate being coddled, but Adariel could care less.  
  
She stood straight and glanced around the infirmary, looking for the other tasks she had yet to do, but someone touched her arm.  
  
"We can handle this, Morelen," they said; somehow, Adariel couldn't focus enough on them to realize who it was.  
  
That was, however, all she needed to hear. She nodded to the person at her side - whoever it was - and left the west infirmary wing, gaining speed the entire time until she was running into the closed off wing.  
  
The hall already had many anxious attendees, but they let her pass. Adariel made her way through, only to find the way blocked by one of Elrond's assistance. Her eyes both glared and pleaded with him, but he shook his head.  
  
Knowing that pleading with him would only be a waste of breath and badly needed energy, she turned and made her way to a less populated area of the hall. She turned to start pacing, only to find a very worried Arwen standing there.  
  
"They have said nothing," she said to answer Adariel's unspoken question. "Not a word."  
  
Adariel sighed and allowed Arwen to pull her into the crowd, but she paid them no heed. Thoughts raced and bounced around her head, but she couldn't seem to focus on any of them. She knew that they were there, because occasionally she would grasp at one, only to lose it an instant later. But as she stood there her vision began to blur as her attention turned inside. Everything swirled as her heart pounded painfully against her ribcage, but her thoughts miraculously began to focus.  
  
Not, however, on what she wanted them to focus. The sight of Aradalien so broken and bruised haunted her. What if she was beyond help? What if she lived, but with permanent injuries or handicaps? And what of her emotional scars?  
  
Her heart pounded harder, her lungs constricted, and she began trembling, gently at first, but gaining strength as it spread from deep inside her outwards. She placed a hand to her chest, her fingers splayed across her collar bone in an attempt to steady her breath and heartbeat.  
  
The guilt and worry weighed down on her until slowly, bit by bit, it became incredibly close. The bodies of those around her seemed to press in on her as the walls did, and her tremors became even more violent. The hall, and everything in it, seemed to close in around her. Her entire world seemed to shrink around her, like a cage to imprison some wild thing. When she could stand it no longer, she moved suddenly, startling those around her after she had been still for so long. She shoved through, being uncharacteristically rude, and ran, ignoring the surprised and concerned cries behind her.  
  
She didn't know where she was going, only that she had to get away. But before she knew it, she was standing in the entry way to her section of the infirmary, the west wing. Still shaking, thought not so aggressively, she stood there for a moment, completely still. Then, as silently as she could, she rushed to one of the personal chambers at the back.  
  
Adariel braced both hands on the windowsill that faced the south. The gray sky still deceptively alluded to a calm day, and the breeze that made her hair flutter was cool. She felt so incredibly alone, and yet feared being around others.  
  
Despite that everyone insisted endlessly that she wasn't to blame, Adariel couldn't help but think that had it not been for her, Aradalien wouldn't be the subject of the concern of everyone in Rivendell. She knew that several people *did* blame her for Nurardaion's death and Aradalien's condition, and deep down she agreed with them.  
  
She released a shaky breath, gripping the railing tightly. "Never have a been so confused or conflicted. I wish someone could tell me what to think-"  
  
She broke off when she couldn't force words past the tightness in her throat. She was shocked, then, when a quiet voice said, "Somehow I gather the feeling that you would not respond well to being told what to think."  
  
Adariel whirled to find Haldir, changed into a pair of loose trousers and a shirt that fit the same, leaning on the door frame, arms crossed over his chest. A hint of vexation swelled within her suddenly, and she frowned at him.  
  
"What are you doing?" she demanded quietly. "You should be resting!"  
  
"I've *been* resting," he told her flatly.  
  
"Resting in this ward, good sir," she said in a hard voice, "constitutes as sleeping, not lying down for a few moments." His voice was quiet, she had noticed, quieter than it should have been, which testified to his condition, but at least he was speaking now, and he no longer looked bland.  
  
Yes, the blandness was gone, she decided, and she was more relieved by this than she had thought she would be.  
  
He didn't respond, not the way he was supposed to. He was *supposed* to roll his eyes, nod, and go back to his bed, where he would promptly go to sleep if only to get her to shut up. But, of course, he couldn't do what he was supposed to even this once, the stupid Marchwarden. "You're blaming yourself again, aren't you?"  
  
Adariel looked away.  
  
"I thought as much," he said grimly.  
  
She faced him again with an austere glare. "If you refuse to lie down, then at *least* sit!" she snapped, pointing to the bed that was against the wall lengthwise, opposite the window.  
  
For once he did as ordered without so much as a glance. This surprised her enough to subdue her, and Haldir took advantage of it. "Why do you pull the guilt entirely upon yourself?" he asked, looking genuinely confused, something Adariel was not used to. "Whatever your reason, it's one that none of us can see."  
  
"I pull the guilt upon myself because it belongs to me," she answered, blinking at him. "I had thought that it was clear that I-"  
  
"I believe," he interrupted, "that you blame yourself to protect others from feeling the pain of guilt."  
  
This, somehow, struck a cord, but she couldn't seem to place what cord it struck, so she did her best to pretend it had no affect on her whatsoever. "What do you mean?"  
  
"I have noticed, Morelen, that you place others before yourself by nature. You stop at nothing to help and, more notably in the case, protect, others despite the personal cost." He paused for a moment, almost as if he half expected her to say something, but all Adariel could do was stare. It made perfect sense, and yet at the same time it made no sense at all. She was blaming herself to protect others? If she was, she'd never realized it...  
  
"They don't need your protection, Adariel," he said gently.  
  
She shook her head. "You don't understand."  
  
"Then make me understand."  
  
Adariel watched him for a moment, then abruptly turned and walked through the doorway and out of the infirmary. Haldir was thoroughly taken aback by this, but didn't move, which was a wise idea, since within moments she had returned holding a wad of fine linen.  
  
She hesitated, then unfolded the cloth to reveal a very pretty lavender gown with pale blue and silver embroidery. It would have been prettier had it not been torn from the neckline at the shoulder downward for roughly six inches, or gashed at the stomach, the edges bloodstained, or the skirt torn in several places along the waist line, the longest running through the skirt clear to the hem.  
  
Adariel offered him the dress wordlessly, and he took it from her, looking over the tears in awed horror. She let the sleeves drop from her hands then backed away slowly, her eyes fixed on the lavender rags.  
  
"He came at me from behind." Her voice was low enough that Haldir had to focus all of his attention on her to catch her words. "I yelled, but he covered my mouth fast enough that I was afraid no one had heard. He wasn't so brutal at the very first, but he pulled out the blade when I continued to fight him. He cut my stomach. It was only a gash, and the blade wasn't poisoned in the least, but I still have the scar. Nurardaion pulled him off before..."  
  
Unable to actually say the words, she let Haldir's imagination fill the gap. "In six weeks it will be a year ago exactly."  
  
The silence that rang afterward was absolute, but after a moment Adariel turned back toward the window and said in a slightly louder voice, "That was why I left so abruptly, why I was so rash in all of my decisions. He never tried it again, but he was always there, reminding me of that night, reminding me that it could happen again, with no one there to rescue me. There hadn't been enough evidence against him to prove his guilt. He claimed that it had been dark, and that Nurardaion and myself could have confused him for any Elf, or even a Man; he tried to blame Estel. We couldn't prove doubtlessly that it was him, so he remains.  
  
"I'm terrified of him, and he knows it. It's only a matter of time before he *does* try it again. He will be more cautions when he does. He knows that he can be caught. He will wait until I'm most at risk, and then he will strike, but not before harming or killing all those I love." Adariel had been unable to meet Haldir's eyes before, but not she turned her miserable ones to his. "I ruined his life, he said. He will make me suffer, then he will attack. More than likely, I won't live through our next encounter."  
  
She dropped her eyes from his, but Haldir watched her as she turned and went back to the window; once more she gripped the sill as if it were a lifeline.  
  
The purest anger, even hatred, that he had ever felt before pounded through his veins. The 'he' was Dimalphion, of that he was sure, and he was also sure that Elves like that didn't deserve to be Elves at all; they didn't deserve to be anything but a slave to Sauron, if that.  
  
This was her reason for leaving. He couldn't blame her, though he did wish that he'd been there to have a good long discussion with Dimalphion about proper behavior, though no weapons would be involved; Haldir decided that he would prefer to kill him with his bare hands.  
  
Rarely had his thoughts taken such a note of brutality, but he ignored this as he forced himself to stand, which was more difficult to his exhausted body than he cared to find, and walk over to stand beside her. He reached out and grabbed her chin, gently forcing her to look at him.  
  
"If you left so carelessly because of this, it is perfectly understandable," he told her firmly. "Many would have done the same. Your brother and sister chose to go of their own accord, you never forced them. And, as for this next encounter you speak of," he paused slightly, then said (rather forcefully, for all the quietness of his voice), "if it *does* somehow come to pass, you will not be the one to not survive. I'll see to that."  
  
Adariel watched him for a moment, for once completely unreadable. Then a smile started, and soon she was grinning at him. It wasn't bright, but it wasn't forced, and that was something to note. She stepped back and grabbed his elbow, gently turning him around and ushering him back to the bed in the infirmary.  
  
"You should rest," she said firmly, but her smile never disappeared. She stood aside as he got into the bed, then sat down on the edge and grabbed his hand. "Thank you. For everything."  
  
And before he could reply, she stood and left the infirmary, humming an old song about sunrises.  
  
^*^  
  
I know this one's shorter than normal, but I kinda wanted to end at the end of the discussion, so, here we are! The next chapter will be fun to write; I have several ideas for it. Hopefully it won't be too long, lol!  
  
Love and hugs to all!  
  
Carlee 


	10. Attempted Normalcy

I know, I know, I took forever getting this up. But, please, cut me some slack; I've been fairly busy lately. I mean, (for those of you who know what I'm talking about) my high school football team as made it into the play-offs (Sectionals are this Friday), and being in the band I have to be at all home/play-off games, and my Phys. Ed. teacher is psycho and insists on giving us homework that takes forever. Add to that my general lack of sleep, and you get Carlee the Psycho Who Doesn't Write Very Fast.  
  
Sorry. I'll shut up now.  
  
^*^  
  
The Dark Star  
  
Part Ten  
  
Attempted Normalcy  
  
Two days later, there was still little news of Aradalien, and Adariel was still not allowed to enter that portion of the infirmary, nor was anyone else, save Elrond himself. Adariel was still busy, but it wasn't driving or severe, as it had been before that rather confusing talk with Haldir. Somehow she knew that the two were connected, though she couldn't even begin to fathom the reason, or reasons.  
  
It hadn't been until later that night that Adariel realized just how much she had revealed to the Marchwarden of Lórien, whom she barely knew. Very few had heard even that much about that terrible night, and she hoped that Haldir would keep her confessions to himself. She believed that he would, but her belief in his ability to keep his mouth closed wasn't enough to banish the fear entirely.  
  
She was doing her best to push these thoughts from her mind as she entered the infirmary on that bright, cheerful morning. Many - nearly all - of the search party members had been released, but a few, including Marchwarden Haldir, still remained, predominantly because she was overly cautious.  
  
Upon entering the ward Adariel found several Elves, anywhere from ten to fifteen, most of them perfectly well, holding a sort of gather of men-folk. She pursed her lips.  
  
"When, pray tell," she said in a deadly quiet voice, gathering their attention quite effectively, "did my infirmary become a place of social gathering?" She glared at them, and they looked appropriately ashamed, which would have looked rather odd to passersby, given that her eyes were level with the shortest one's chin.  
  
"Out!" she shouted suddenly, and the healthy Elves scurried out of the ward. When they were gone, the smile she had been holding back broke free, and she shook her head as she laughed.  
  
Maedhros, opposite her gentle laughter, was in hysterics. "Haven't they learned?" he cried. "You do that every time!"  
  
"Apparently they've not learned," she replied as she started gathering the things she needed.  
  
"What many of us couldn't help but notice," Sûlthalion said conversationally, "was that they were all at least a head taller than you, my lady."  
  
Adariel whirled, clutching her things to her chest and looking mock-scandalized. "Well! That is something I hear often, I must say!"  
  
Some snorted, others simply rolled their eyes, and one watched interestedly. "It is interesting to see a she-Elf make seasoned warriors scurry," Dagnir, another friend of her brother's, though not so close as Maedhros, pointed out.  
  
"They do not scurry," Adariel corrected as she began tending to Maedhros. "They depart from the room quickly."  
  
"Otherwise put, they scurry," Dagnir countered, and Adariel simply shook her head with a smile and dropped the subject.  
  
"You may leave," she told Maedhros, and he jumped up as she moved on.  
  
"I dare say, Adariel, it's about time!" he teased. "I thought I would remain here for eternity!"  
  
"Just for that," she said sweetly, "sit. You must stay at least one more day. That blow to your head still worries me."  
  
The Elf's jaw dropped slightly in shock, and she laughed as she tended to her next patient. "Excellent, Maedhros," Elendur said, jestingly sarcastic. "Now you must sneak away."  
  
Adariel turned and told him, "I'll not have you giving him ideas, or you shall face the same fate." Elendur did not reply, but merely beamed at her.  
  
Whatever conversation passed afterward was ignored by Adariel as she focused on her task. She released them all, with firm instructions to come to her immediately if any wounds gave them any trouble whatsoever.  
  
"Angrim, let it be known that if I hear of you at the archery range before a week has passed, I will reverse the heavens and earth. Have I made myself clear?" she said firmly to the young Elf with a broken right arm.  
  
He nodded sheepishly and left, leaving Adariel with her last patient. Somehow, she was not surprised to find Lothlórien's Marchwarden.  
  
"How is it," she demanded with folded arms, "that you are ceaselessly hindmost?"  
  
Instead of making a short, rather biting comment while glaring at her impassively, which was something she had seen less and less of, and was still surprised by the lack thereof, he smirked slightly and said, "It is an enigma even to myself, my lady."  
  
"That nasty habit of yours will change eventually, I trust," she said lightly as she began her work, which was that of mere moments. Adariel got to her feet once more and said, "There. You also may leave, but if-"  
  
"I know," he said wearily. "If I'm given any trouble go straight to you, correct?"  
  
"Impertinent Marchwarden," she accused. "Now begone with you."  
  
He bowed with a smirk, simply to annoy her, and started to leave, but stopped when a small voice said, "Adariel?"  
  
Adariel turned to find a small child standing in the door way, clutching at her hand. She smiled kindly. "What is it, Nessa?"  
  
"I hurt my hand," she said, with the slightest hint of a lisp. Once more under the same interested speculation, Adariel's grin swiftly changed to a frown.  
  
"Let me see," she said, and little Nessa tottered across the room to present her lightly bloodied hand. Adariel lifted her up onto the previously occupied bed and examined her hand as if it were a severe wound.  
  
"What happened?" she asked as she made of a show of inspecting the small palm.  
  
"We were playing by the river and I tripped on a rock," Nessa explained, though Haldir had to decipher this through the lisp.  
  
"I see. There's no need to worry over this, Nessa. Within moments, it will be as if nothing happened," Adariel said confidently, and the girl smiled.  
  
True to the healer's word, Nessa was soon being helped off the bed and sent on her way, but only after giving Adariel a hug and a bright goodbye.  
  
She was relieved to find that Haldir had already gone. She wasn't sure how much of her session with Nessa he'd seen, but her relief had nothing to do with that. After admitting everything about Dimalphion, she wasn't sure she was ready to be alone in the same room with him, only because very few had heard as much as he had about that entire occurrence. Elrond and Arwen knew, though Elladan and Elrohir had been off playing Ranger at the time, and had come back in time to hear the edited version. Aradalien and Nurardaion had known a slightly more detailed account, but not so detailed as the version Arwen and her father had heard.  
  
Somehow, though she was ashamed of herself for it then, and still was, she couldn't bring herself to give her siblings the full story. She didn't know what held her back from it, but somehow she had always felt rather uncomfortable with it. She sighed as she mulled this over, not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, wondering why she didn't feel untroubled sharing something of such importance with siblings. Or, her single sibling.  
  
Adariel wandered out of the infirmary, and after a moment's indecision, decided upon visiting the library, which was less than a moment's walk away from her current location. The ornate wood doors were opened wide, as always, when she arrived. She straightened the books on the shelves, put those out of order in their place, and other things required for maintaining a library, but was soon finished.  
  
The waiting, she was sure, would drive her mad. Her sister had been in Imladris two days, and she had seen her once, that one time being during a point that no one should have to see those they love at. Worry, slight (but disappearing) guilt, and the pure urge of a healer to mend all hurts would weigh on her until her sanity left her, she knew it.  
  
"Mistress Adariel," a prim voice called, and she turned to find one of Elrond's assistants standing at the end of the row. "I ask that you accompany me to the restricted ward."  
  
An odd numb feeling rippled through her as she nodded. He turned and led the way at a brisk walk, and before her mind had quite caught up with the rest of her, they were before the door behind which laid Aradalien.  
  
She looked to him, as if verifying that she truly could open the door, and he grinned at her reassuringly. Or at least, tried to: Adariel had never seen either of Elrond's assistants smile. It looked liked it hurt this one's teeth to do so.  
  
Before she could even reach for the handle, the door opened, and she found herself blinking up at Elrond himself. He smiled down at her encouragingly, and was much more effective at it than his assistant.  
  
Her 'uncle' said nothing, merely stepped aside, allowing her to enter, and closed the door behind her, leaving her alone in the room with her twin. Aradalien was sitting up in the bed, leaning against the headboard and staring out the window. She looked much better; the ghostly pallor of her skin was gone, replaced by her creamy complexion. There was a angry red gash above her left brow, surrounded by a dark bruise, and her right cheekbone bore a second bruise. Her black curls had been cleaned and combed and were pulled back in a loose horse tail at the base of her neck, and she wore a red robe dress that wrapped around her body, secured with a white sash embroidered with red.  
  
Nervously Adariel stepped out of the shadows, her movement enough to bring her twin's attention to her. Suddenly under her gaze, Adariel froze, afraid of what her sister might think of her. She had failed Aradalien, after all, leaving her at Kazad-dûm, under the assumption she was dead.  
  
Without moving her gaze from her sister, Aradalien lifted the covers and slowly stood. Adariel moved forward instantly when her sister wobbled, proving herself to be very unsteady, given that Aradalien was an Elf, but Adariel stopped short when she was still a meter from her.  
  
Aradalien reached out and touched her arm mutely, but her trembling sister didn't know what to say, let alone do. She took a step closer to Adariel, then another, and flung her arms around her in a tight hug.  
  
^*^  
  
It was roughly an hour before the door opened once more and Adariel exited the room. "She is sleeping," she told Elrond, who had been waiting. His smile was gentle.  
  
"I thought as much," he admitted, "but I was in honesty waiting for you. Come with me."  
  
They walked silently for a few moments, before Elrond gently said, "I mentioned your self-accusation to Aradalien."  
  
Adariel glanced at him, though it wasn't as sharp as one might have expected it to be. Elrond had always had a way of doing what he thought was best for her, whether she agreed, or even knew, or not. She had never complained; the Lord of Rivendell had nearly been more of a father to her than her own had been.  
  
"I feel I must inform you that she found it as ridiculous as the rest of us," she was told by a stern-voiced Elrond. His voice was firm, but his eyes were equally kind.  
  
"She told me," was the dry response. "The majority of my time with her was spent being lectured on how I had best stop blaming myself, or as soon as she's well she would bind my hands and lock me in my own wardrobe until I admitted that there was no way I was entirely at fault."  
  
Her companion laughed, and she couldn't help but grin. "Perhaps now you will heed our words, then?"  
  
"I heed them," she said defensively as they walked up a flight of stairs and out onto a balcony overlooking the valley.  
  
"But do not take them to heart," Elrond added.  
  
Adariel leaned against the railing of the balcony, sighed, then replied, "For quite some time I found no reason to. Even now, it is difficult."  
  
"Which is no surprise," her surrogate uncle said fairly. "Many who are the sole survivor, or, as in this case, the least injured when life-threatening or fatal wounds are involved, condemn themselves."  
  
"But so many of the circumstances-"  
  
"You never requested their accompaniment," Elrond interrupted firmly, but not unkindly. "Aradalien and Nurardaion departed with you under their own free will, not yours."  
  
Adariel cast her gaze downward for a moment, then looked over at Elrond, to her left. "I would love for it to be so simple in my mind."  
  
A comforting, rather fatherly hand was laid on her shoulder and she found herself on the receiving end of a gentle smile. "It can be, if you let it. You need not protect the rest of us, child. You need not force the guilt upon yourself."  
  
She blinked at him, but otherwise gave no other signs to her thoughts. It appeared that Haldir wasn't the only one who thought she was trying to protect others by blaming herself. It was conceivable, when she thought of it, the idea that she might be guarding others by taking the guilt. Not only that, but she knew that if Elrond believed it, it was more than likely true. As for Haldir... He was still, as he was before, a confusing thought all his own, so she left it at that.  
  
"I suppose that is possible," she said slowly, more as if she were thinking aloud. Adariel smiled at her 'uncle' and hugged him, then stepped away as she said, "I'm improving, at any rate, thanks to you and others. I will endure, if only to ensure that there is at least one annoyingly persistent healer in the Dell."  
  
Elrond laughed as she turned and started back toward the stairs, but said before she was gone, "And who might the 'others' be?"  
  
She suddenly panicked slightly; somehow, for no known reason, she didn't want to reveal that one of her confidantes (albeit the most confusing) was a Marchwarden she barely knew. But she didn't show this outwardly, instead shrugging simply and saying, "Arwen, Elladan, Noviel, Elrohir. Just... others." She turned to leave again.  
  
"Adariel," he called after her suddenly, as if his mouth had uttered it of its own accord, and she turned again, brows raised inquiringly.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
Elrond hesitated, something which struck her as odd; he was always so sure of himself! But then he smiled (though at first glance it looked rather forced) and shook his head. "Nothing, Morelen."  
  
The Lord of Rivendell watched her go, an unreadable yet rather anguished expression etched into his ageless features. He had nearly told her, but had managed to refrain himself from speaking. Certainly Adariel had seen something in his countenance, but she was patient - when she wanted to be at least - and willing to wait for him to say it on his own.  
  
He sighed as he turned to look out over the valley. Nimrómen had made it clear that he preferred Adariel to never know, but had agreed that she had the right to know; he had left firm instructions for Elrond to not tell her until she was ready. It would be quite a shock, of course, and she might even be displeased by it. Avarlammeniel, who had been rather bitter toward the Morelen for nearly the child's entire life, hadn't cared either way.  
  
And so the choice was left to him, Elrond Peredhil of Imladris. He wanted nothing more than for her to know - he had felt her entire life that she should know - and he knew Adariel was ready, but he wasn't sure that he himself was ready. Not ready for her reaction, at least. He knew that he *had* to tell her, but... Not yet.  
  
^*^  
  
Having barely thought twice about Elrond's odd behavior and thinking more of their conversation, Adariel had nearly run over Arwen as the Undómiel turned a corner at the same time she did.  
  
Arwen planted both hands firmly on her hips, but her eyes danced. "I've been looking for you."  
  
Both dark brows raised. "Have you?"  
  
"Yes." Arwen held out a plain, white cotton gown. "You told me that upon your return you wished me to instruct you on the use of a blade," she reminded her friend. "No better time than the present."  
  
Adariel took the gown, then looked back up at the Undómiel, who said without waiting for a response, "Change into that, and meet me in the practice yards in a quarter of an hour."  
  
Adariel couldn't help but smirk at her friend's retreating back; Arwen had always had the habit of being rather controlling at some times. But then, it wasn't that Adariel herself could throw stones, living in a glass house; she was controlling almost all the time. It was a natural side affect of being a healer, in Adariel's case.  
  
A quarter of an hour later, Adariel stood in the center of a practice court, in the white practice dress, which was slightly loose fitting for better movement with sleeves that went half way down her fore arm, bearing her wrists, holding a dull practice blade in her right hand.  
  
Arwen corrected her stance and grip, and instructed her on the basic maneuvers, but it took Adariel the better part of a few hours to get that much down, due to her general hopelessness with any weapon not made of wood and without feathers.  
  
It was six hours before Arwen finally said, "I believe that you have the elementary moves conquered."  
  
"Really?" said a voice from the doorway. "That's certainly more than anyone else could accomplish with her, Arwen. I congratulate you."  
  
Adariel made a face at her surrogate brother as her instructor said, "I do not believe that your opinion was asked for, Elrohir."  
  
She shook her head as she put her practice blade away, then nodded to both siblings. "Thank you, Arwen. Meet again tomorrow?"  
  
"Certainly. Dawn?"  
  
"Just as good a time as any other." Adariel nodded to Arwen's brother. "Elrohir," she said, then turned and left.  
  
It would take quite some time before she would be even remotely skilled with a blade, Adariel realized as she, already cleaned, dressed in a pale blue robe-dress with white embroidery and a white sash. The collar was high on her neck, but did not bother her.  
  
Hopeless as she was with any weapon that was not made of wood and had feather, Adariel also realized that she had made great improvements in that single morning. She had paid the price for it, though, given that swordsmanship required entirely different muscles than archery, and was rather sore.  
  
Deciding that it had been far too long (an entire three days) since she had seen her gelding, Adariel went to the stables, where she grabbed the brushes required for a proper grooming, and gave him just that, basking in the serenity that the stables offered. It was quite, but not uncomfortably so, and the company was pleasant.  
  
When she was finished, Adariel put the brushes away, then went back to the stall bearing an apple. She grinned as Gil-luin snatched it away and began to munch happily on the fruit. She stroked his mane, content to simply spoil the horse that had saved her in more ways than most would have thought possible, given that he was a horse, for some time. Then she heard an odd noise, as if an Elf - an already implicitly silent being - was doing its best to walk silently over straw.  
  
She paused, the sudden, overwhelming feeling that she wasn't alone making her throat lock. She carefully dropped her hand, attempting to make the move look idle, and went to reach for something - anything - solid enough to protect herself with, but before she could grab anything but empty air found herself being jerked through the open door of the stall and thrown against a closed stall door on the opposite side. Her hands, which had automatically gone up to protect herself, were pinned between herself and the wood, just as she was pinned between the wood and her attacker.  
  
Adariel found herself reliving moments she would have rather died than gone through again as a hand was clamped over her mouth and a knife pressed to her throat. "Remain motionless, Morelen, and I shall not harm you. I simply want to remind you of something."  
  
The voice was sickeningly familiar, and Adariel closed her eyes as if it would help her.  
  
"No matter how many others you place between us, I will still find you," he hissed. "You never gave me an opportunity, and now you must face the consequences of your actions. Replacing your brother with that marchwarden friend of yours will only make those consequences worse."  
  
As suddenly as it had appeared, the pressure was gone, and Adariel fell away from the stall door, struggling to pull air into her mashed lungs. She brought a hand up to her stinging throat as running footsteps sounded through the stables. But it was not him, she knew; he had made his threat, he would not bother her for two more weeks.  
  
"Lady Adariel?"  
  
That made her look up; it was Orophin. She stared at him astonishedly as he watched her in much the same way.  
  
"It was him, wasn't it?" he asked slowly after some time. "I've not heard the entire tale, but I know essentially what happened; Elrohir told me of it." His faced hardened into a look of harsh sobriety that did not fit him. "Your silence answers for you." Orophin turned.  
  
"Where are you going?" she found herself calling after him.  
  
"Someone must be told of this. Either of Elrond's sons, Rúmil, Haldir, someone."  
  
That spurned her into movement, and within an instant Adariel had thrown herself at the young sentinel and gripped his arm desperately. He didn't know the circumstances; if he were to tell someone, more than likely it would be someone who would then confront her attacker, and if Dimalphion were to know that somehow it had gotten out... He would only hurt her more, but not directly. No, he would hurt those she loved, relishing in her self-destructive guilt, and then he would hurt her directly.  
  
Adariel would allow Dimalphion to do whatever he wanted with her, anything he wanted, if it meant keeping those close to her safe.  
  
"No!" she cried. "Tell no one! No one must ever know!"  
  
Orophin stared at her as if she had lost her senses, which may have actually been true. "No one must ever know?" he repeated. "Perhaps your lack of air has caused you to temporarily take leave for your sanity. In the case that you may not have noticed, blood is currently soaking into the collar of the gown you wear!"  
  
Adariel reached up to touch the high collar and found it slightly damp, testifying truthfully to Orophin's words.  
  
"I realize this, but I beg you, tell no one, not yet! I... I will tell someone! But I want you to never speak of it!"  
  
He watched her rather dubiously. "If not Elladan or Elrohir, then at least mention this to my brother; Haldir seems to have developed-"  
  
Somehow, the prospect of that sentence's ending frightened her nearly as much as Dimalphion. "Orophin, please," she said, voice low. "I will mention this when I feel that I am ready. But until then, I implore you, do not breathe a word of this to anyone not even - *especially* not - your brother."  
  
'Your brother,' she added mentally, 'knows too much as it is. Much more, and Dimalphion may believe him to be close to me, and then... Well, for now I shall simply say that I do not want him harmed because of a misconceived friendship.'  
  
Orophin merely watched her uncertainly, and a desperate note entered Adariel's voice when she said, "Swear!"  
  
After some time he finally said, "I swear it," and Adariel released his arm.  
  
"Thank you," she said quietly, then walked in the direction of the infirmary.  
  
Orophin knew that he should never have sworn such a thing; he knew that he should have told someone. But Adariel had looked so strangely panicked, as if the thought of him telling anyone terrified her more than the event itself.  
  
Oddly, she had also seemed frightened of hearing what it was that Haldir had developed. He didn't know what she expected, but he wasn't sure he wanted to ask. At any rate, Orophin had been about to tell her that the marchwarden had developed an odd dislike for that Dimaphion character, and that Haldir would certainly be happy to add another reason to his personal list of why he hated Dimalphion.  
  
The sentinel sighed as he made his way into the stables, for all his own horse was still in Lórien. Under normal circumstances, when something confused him this much, he went to either of his brothers for an explanation: one of the direct advantages of being the youngest. If Haldir did no know the answer, then Rúmil would, or vise versa. He had gone to them less and less as the years passed, but occasionally he would find himself in a situation, such as this one, that left him with more questions than he had answers.  
  
Being sworn to secrecy, however, left him at a slight disadvantage. If he was forbidden from speaking of it, how could he go to either of his brothers? He couldn't, not if he were to keep his word at the same time.  
  
Orophin could only hope that Adariel said something to someone soon, before it happened again. The violence with which this Dimalphion handled her would increase gradually, and Orophin knew that he did not want to see it reach its peak.  
  
Adariel was still shaking at least two hours later, when Maedhros sauntered into the infirmary. But she had cleaned the blood from her throat and changed in to a light violet gown of the style.  
  
"What is it?" she asked, not looking up from the line of sedative tonics she was labeling.  
  
"We have a visitor, from Lórien."  
  
*That* made her look up. "Do we? Who made this journey, if I may ask?"  
  
Maedhros shrugged. "I did not ask."  
  
Adariel rolled her eyes and stood. Maedhros may have been brilliant in battle, but he was rather hopeless the rest of the time; honestly, he did not *ask*? Wasn't that the first thing that most did, to ask who had arrived? Maehdros was a wonderful Elf; kind, humorous, and a magnificent soldier, but he was absolutely hopeless; typical male.  
  
She made her way through the corridor and out into the courtyard, where she was shocked to see none other than Vinya dismounting from a beautiful mare and greeting a very pregnant Lalaith, who was also the midwife of Rivendell.  
  
This was certainly a surprise, though perhaps it should have been; Vinya had said when Adariel left Lórien that she may make the journey herself, to help a relative welcome a child into the world.  
  
Movement to her right caught her eye, and Adariel saw Orophin enter the courtyard. Their encounter at the stables, however, was temporarily forgotten as she observed the young sentinel's expression as he watched the she-Elf of Lórien.   
  
Adariel grinned, realizing that perhaps Vinya's sentiments toward Orophin were returned.  
  
^*^  
  
Wowzers, this one took quite some time... At least it was longer than the last one. Oh, as for the title to this part, I called it 'Attempted Normalcy' because A) I couldn't think of any better ones, lol, and B) because that's exactly what Adariel is doing; she's attempting to find normalcy in her life, when deep down she knows there's none to be found. Just had to add that, since there was nothing related to 'attempted normalcy' in this part.  
  
Love and hugs,  
  
Carlee 


	11. Relationship Related Conflicts

It's been a while. I'm sorry. I hope what happens in this part makes up for it.  
  
^*^  
  
Part Eleven  
  
Relationship-related Conflicts  
  
One glance at the angry, if thin, red cut on the Morelen's neck told Haldir that something had gone wrong at some point; between the time he'd seen her that morning and Vinya's arrival, something had happened, and whatever it was had left Adariel at the wrong end of the blade. But the she-Elf was remarkably skilled at avoiding him, and Haldir lacked the inclination to confront her about it before others.  
  
Most of her day had, in fact, been spent with her sister, Vinya, the Lord Elrond's children, and Vinya's expectant cousin Lalaith. Rumíl and Orophin had both spent plenty of time with the lady as well. Orophin, in fact, had been there during the single moment of the day that the snake Dimalphion had dared to show his face.  
  
"It was rather amusing, to be frank," Orophin had told him later. "He gave lady Adariel the longest look, of course, disgusting creature that he is, but he also seemed to take quite an interest in Vinya. It is a well known thing that Vinya befriended Adariel quite quickly back in Lórien, and Adariel noticed Dimalphion's look toward her friend. You should have seen the glare she gave him! I truly believe that he was more shocked than we were."  
  
Haldir had mused over this for some time; indeed, more time than he would have admitted even to himself. This new and sudden display of defiance toward Dimalphion was both encouraging and galling: It was not for her own defense that she was suddenly bold, but for another's; thus, while it was wonderful that she was displaying an emotion other than fear, the fact that it was on another's behalf took away from that small victory.  
  
And that cut! It was like the puzzle piece that had seemingly disappeared from the face of the earth; it was significant, he knew, but, for the life of him, he could not decipher *why* it was important. The obviously-uncomfortable way Orophin had acted when Haldir had mentioned it was not in the least encouraging. He had pressed his younger brother when Orophin began to fidget, but the sentinel had muttered something about meeting someone somewhere, and being late, and dashed away before Haldir got in another word.  
  
And so, when Haldir found Adariel that evening, finally on her own, he followed as she exited into the gardens, determined to finally put his mind at ease by simply asking her about the stupid cut. She was walking swiftly, an Elf with a purpose, through the garden, and Haldir kept pace not more than fifteen feet behind, also an Elf with a purpose.  
  
Of course, he didn't expect her to suddenly stop. She folded her arms about her and stood in the middle of an intersection of walkways that she had stopped in.  
  
"I know you're there," she said coldly. "Show yourself."  
  
Haldir didn't move, but the shadows across from him did: Dimalphion, dressed entirely in black, as proverbial as it was, stepped out into the moonlight.  
  
"The hunted confronts the hunter. I am impressed. That is certainly more charming than asking your sister to approach the court for you."  
  
"I am not here," she said coldly, "to dispute with you over charm or hunting."  
  
"Then why do you confront me?" he said, his voice pitched low.  
  
"Leave, her, alone," she snarled through clenched teeth."  
  
"What?"  
  
"If you harm Vinya - or anyone else - in any way, I will not hesitate to do now what I could not do then."  
  
"Tell me, my lady: do you truly expect me to believe that threat?"  
  
"Try something," she dared, "and then we will see."  
  
Adariel's back was to him, but Haldir could see Dimalphion's expressions; he did not, by any means, like what he saw: at the Morelen's words, Dimalphion's look became very hostile.  
  
"You," he said snarled lowly, "are becoming very brave." His hand began to move to his hip, and Haldir saw him grasp the hilt of a small blade. "That, my dear, must be rectified."  
  
His body moved without his mind's consent, and Haldir suddenly found himself walking out of the shadows. Dimalphion, seeing movement out of the corner of his eye, whirled to see who approached, suddenly losing interest in his blade.  
  
Adariel also turned, and upon seeing him she looked, for only a fraction of an instant, almost afraid. Surely not of him?  
  
"We were looking for you, my lady," Haldir said coolly, as if he had seen nothing. "I was beginning to think you had left us for the realm of Thranduil."  
  
There was an instant's hesitation, and Adariel's voice was shaking every-so-slightly when she said, "Not Mirkwood, merely the gardens."  
  
Haldir nodded to her, then looked to Dimalphion. "If you would?" His voice was much kinder than his eyes, and the snake returned his gaze, glare for glare. Haldir couldn't tell who was more hostile, himself or Dimalphion.  
  
Eventually, however, the dark-haired Elf gave a mocking bow to them both and left. Adariel didn't move the slightest bit until several long moments after he had left, and Haldir did nothing to make her move, let alone speak.  
  
"How much did you hear?" she asked eventually. Haldir opened his mouth to deny the claim, but she sighed and said, "I know that you weren't looking for me; I told everyone that I wanted to take a short walk on my own. How much of that most enjoyable confrontation did you hear?"  
  
"Enough," he said; rather shortly, to be admitted, but Dimalphion always seemed to grind down his patience faster than any other Elf Haldir had met. Within the short amount of time the Marchwarden had known him, Dimalphion had managed to completely and totally alienate himself in Haldir's eyes.  
  
"Pray tell, how much is 'enough?'" She was slightly exasperated.  
  
"Walk with me for a moment. There are things which we much discuss," he said, neatly avoiding the question until its answer served his purposes better. Adariel recognized this, he knew: it was obvious from her frustrated sigh. Despite this, she fell in step beside him, and they slowly meandered through the gardens.  
  
"Tell me, does that scratch on your neck sting?"  
  
Adariel's hand jerked upward, as if she were going to touch the limb in question, but she stopped it and clasped both hands before her. "A little," she replied stiltedly.  
  
"I believe it has been mentioned before that I am not blind."  
  
"A conversation which I remember."  
  
"That mentioned, I feel I must enumerate that your injury did not yet exist this morning."  
  
She laughed slightly, but he saw the guardedness in her eyes. "It was a accident of my own account; an incident where my true maladroitness came forth through the facade of grace," she explained, and Haldir immediately saw that what she was about to say would not be the entire truth. "I was in the stables, visiting Gil-luin, and I chose to approach another horse. He did not know me well, and thus, when I slipped and grabbed him to keep my balance, he became frightened, and leaped. A piece of metal on his tether hit me. That is how I acquired the gash you speak of."  
  
He sighed and turned, grabbing her shoulder and bringing her around to face him. By the moonlight, her ivory skin was very near translucent, and her violet-blue eyes vivid. "My lady, I have been around horses all of my life, and around you for a period of time long enough for me to make basic judgments. Thus, I know that the scenario you speak of simply isn't possible," he said, an impatient note to his voice. "The truth, if you please."  
  
She jerked back a step, pulling her shoulder out of his grasp. "That is the truth," she said indignantly.  
  
"In a land where the sun is silver and Sauron is our greatest ally, perhaps that is the truth," he snapped. "I would prefer the truth of our land, please."  
  
She blinked, but her surprised expression was gone in an instant, immediately replaced by an indignant, and rather angry, look. "I have given you more of the truth than you realize," she hissed, and Haldir knew that she wasn't referring to the story she'd just given him, but what she had told him about what Dimalphion had done to her.  
  
"If you have told me so much," he demanded, taking a step forward and significantly shortening the distance between then, "then why stop there?"  
  
"For your protection," she snapped, her voice rising.  
  
"And I need your protection?"  
  
"I am, for the time being, the barrier between you and the serpent. Not merely you, in the complete truth, but many!"  
  
"I, as Marchwarden of Lothlórien, most desperately need your protection," he snapped sarcastically.  
  
"And I need your protection?" she cried. "Why?"  
  
Perhaps she had never meant to bring up the subject of protection, neither his nor her own. But she had, and it had led to the question that he could not answer: Why did he care about some slip of a she-Elf from Rivendell? What importance did she hold to him?  
  
Haldir couldn't answer her question, and he knew it. So, he did what any wise Elf would do: he sidestepped the question.  
  
"You're afraid of him."  
  
She looked away, and Haldir knew that he had sufficiently distracted her from the question she had posed. "You've admitted this to me, you needn't deny it."  
  
"I never denied it." Her voice was barely audible.  
  
"Dimalphion gave you that cut, didn't he?"  
  
"I never said that."  
  
"You do not have to." He paused, then asked, "Did he threaten you?"  
  
"I was due."  
  
Haldir blinked. "What?"  
  
"Every two weeks or so," she said, "he reminds me that, no matter how many people I surround myself with, I am still vulnerable."  
  
This he could not believe. "And you accept this as the way of things?" he asked incredulously.  
  
She finally looked back at him, her gaze sharp. "No. But I do accept that if I voice anything, he will only strike faster. I must have time to prepare."  
  
"You approached him on behalf of someone else," he pointed out. "Why not do the same for yourself?"  
  
Adariel walked around him and sat on the delicately carved ornate wooden bench that was just off the side of the path. "Because I did just that, once. The only thing it did for me was get me nearly raped," she said flatly, but, contradictory to her tone, she shuddered.  
  
"You said that he 'reminds you that, no matter how many people you're surrounded with, you're still vulnerable,'" he said. "I think that, if you remain the company of the *right* people, your vulnerability will decrease." She looked up at him as he stepped toward her and gently laid a hand on her shoulder. "There are those who would willingly place themselves in danger for you, that much I can discern easily."  
  
Adariel didn't respond. She merely stared up at him, as if she were trying to absorb what she was being told, her eyes a bit wide.  
  
"And, I must add, your hostilities toward me are unneeded."  
  
"I know," she said absently; her focus was not on him so much as it was her inner thoughts.  
  
He would not deduce what made him say it until quite some time later, but what he said next was spoken so softly that the trees beside them never heard it, but Adariel heard it clearly.  
  
"You needn't be afraid of me, Adariel."  
  
And while his own mind reeled at the statement - which had come unbidden from his mouth; he hadn't even thought of it before it had been uttered, a fact that irked him greatly - it seemed to give Adariel some of her equilibrium. Her eyes focused, and her head tilted slightly.  
  
"I know. I always knew."  
  
She stood, and Haldir stepped back. After a long moment's silence, she gave a slight smile and said, "I'm sure the others will be wondering where we are. Perhaps we should return to them."  
  
The commonplace statement gave him his own sense of balance, and he offered an arm. "Indeed."  
  
Adariel lightly place her palm on his arm, and they proceeded in a companionable silence.  
  
^*^  
  
Over the next two weeks, Adariel's friendship with Haldir blossomed. At first, each had remained in the other's company to ensure their safety: Haldir knew that Dimalphion would make no attack toward Adariel if she were not alone, and Adariel knew that her tormentor would wait until Haldir was alone to injure or kill him, simply because he knew that she would torture herself with the knowledge that had she been there, nothing would have happened to Haldir.  
  
But, of course, given that they were constantly in each other's presence, they began to converse more and more, and within a week were good friends. They began to subconsciously counterbalance each other: Adariel kept him from becoming too sardonic and solitary, while Haldir made himself a guardian, of sorts, for her.  
  
Disliking her exhausting schedule, he kept her from throwing herself too vigorously at a task, and made it his responsibility to force her to have a bit of free time for herself. At first it had irritated her, being dragged from her tasks, but eventually she grew used to it, and even began to look forward to the leisure she was forced into.  
  
Adariel had even managed to talk Haldir into helping her with her swordsmanship and her bow work (the former of which she was still nearly hopeless at, but she was improving); and she, appalled at learning that he only knew the very basic necessities of battlefield healing, had taught him the quick, temporary healing arts that warriors used during warfare.  
  
Through the those first two weeks, Dimalphion had never made himself known, though she knew he still watched her. And because of that, a false sense of security fell over her; suddenly it seemed as if nothing more would happen - the nightmare was over. She would not realize the error of this assumption until later.  
  
Aradalien, as the days passed, improved physically and mentally as her twin improved emotionally. In fact, as Adariel sat in the gardens reading two weeks after her confrontation with Dimalphion, Aradalien was out riding with a small group of fellow socialites.  
  
The sun was at its mid-morning position, causing the river to glisten as it gently meandered through the Dell. The trickling sound that the water made had always been soothing to Adariel, and did not fail to serve its relaxing purpose as the Morelen let her fingers play in it. She had positioned herself on a rock in the sun, lying on her stomach at the edge to let her hand dip into the small river beside her. Her other hand held the book she was reading flat, and turned the page when needed.  
  
Adariel was alone, which was rare; or, at least, at first glance she was alone. She felt eyes on her, but refused to acknowledge them, as if they would go away if she simply ignored them. Her book, as it was, aided her in ignoring the world quite efficiently.  
  
"You're being searched for," a voice said suddenly.  
  
She jerked her head up with the look of a deer caught in someone's bow sights, but relaxed once she saw the countenance of Elladan. "Am I?" she inquired.   
  
"Yes. I believe that you're needed in the infirmary. Something about a sedative fusion."  
  
Adariel closed her book and reluctantly removed herself from her sun-warmed rock. "I see. Who is working on this fusion, may I ask?"  
  
"Noviel, of course, and Melian."  
  
She gave a highly unlady-like snort as she made her way toward Elladan. "Melian? The poor thing is still an apprentice. She shouldn't be working on an entirely new fusion."  
  
"Which is why your presence is requested, of course," Elrond's son pointed out.  
  
The trip to the infirmary was a short one, during which little was said. Elladan left her at their destination, where Adariel found Noviel attempting to balance Elencaran and combine herbs at the same time, with young Melian hovering just over her shoulder, being more of a hindrance than a help in her eagerness.  
  
"Noviel, take your daughter and sit," she commanded as she entered the room. "Melian, you shall help me to make this; you must learn how to create such things, we may as well begin instruction at the present. Now." She set her book on the table beside the herbs and thin, delicate glass flasks. "What strength is this to be?"  
  
"Strong," Noviel said from across the room. "Strong enough to let the patient sleep for several hours."  
  
Adariel gave her a look that said quite clearly, "Hush, you." "Not you," she said verbally. "Melian is the one receiving her education on the subject, let her answer." She looked to the girl in question. "Melian?"  
  
"Very strong, to induce a long, restful sleep," the girl confirmed, though her voice was not nearly so solid or sure.  
  
"All right, then. You have added the dogwood root, then? What of the chamomile?"  
  
"Yes, the dogwood is already in the mixture. But not the chamomile."  
  
"Chamomile, my dear Melian," Adariel said, "will be one of the key ingredients in this particular fusion. It is a relaxing herb, and will thus aid us. Tell me, what else may we need?"  
  
Melian was slightly unsure of herself, a hesitation that came with inexperience, but said, "Lemon grass, spearmint leaves, and hawthorn root?"  
  
"Yes, lemon grass will help, but spearmint leaves are used marginally for taste and revival, neither of which are concerns of ours at the moment."  
  
"Then we shouldn't use spearmint leaves?"  
  
"Correct. For the moment, anyway, we shouldn't use spearmint leaves. You were partially right with the hawthorn, but you need the berries, not the root. Also, you failed to mention our key ingredient." Adariel reached for a packet and handed it to her pupil.  
  
"Valerian?"  
  
"Indeed. Valerian is the most powerful sleep inducing herb that we currently know of. Alone, at least. Combined with other herbs, I'm sure that it will be exactly what we want."  
  
Melian glanced at her suddenly, alarmed. "You've not made this before?"  
  
"No," Adariel said simply. "That shouldn't prove to be a problem, however, I'm sure."  
  
"That, Adariel, was terribly reassuring, I'm sure," Noviel interjected dryly.  
  
"I'm sure," she murmured absently, tapping an herb into the already partially-prepared mixture.  
  
Various times they were forced to restart the process, having added the wrong herb, or the incorrect amount. Adariel had expected a mere sedative fusion to be simple; she was quickly, however, being proven wrong. This was, indeed, a slightly more delicate sedative fusion, simply because of its needed potency. When they finally found themselves nearly finished, Adariel dismissed her companions, deciding to finish the rest on her own; the others had worked hard, she had concluded, starting the project for her and only asking for her help after much difficulty. So she sent Noviel and Melian away with the orders to return the next day in order for them to look over the mixture and deem it and its contents safe before testing it.  
  
And thus Haldir found her as it was nearing dusk, cleaning up her work space before she retired to the library to read some more. She was concentrating intensely on placing each herb packet in its appropriate space, and going about in a very particular manner. Adariel may have been rather absentminded at times, but Haldir had to admit that she could be incredibly meticulous at other times.  
  
In fact, she was concentrating enough that she didn't hear his footsteps as he approached; this was proven by her reaction when he spoke.  
  
"Lord Elrond requested that I-"  
  
Adariel whirled around, startled, and whoever was behind her cut off as she did so. For a panicked moment, she thought that Dimalphion had resumed his tormenting, but she was relieved to find only Haldir. After she regained her composure, she said, "Lord Elrond requested that you...?"  
  
"That I tell you that he wishes you to dress appropriately at the banquet tonight."  
  
Her eyes widened in horror. "Banquet?" she reiterated.  
  
"Yes," he said (rather slowly, to be admitted, perplexed by her apparent horror), "for-"  
  
"No!" she cried. "Don't tell me! I don't want to know what the thing is for. Dress appropriately? Why are we having it?" Haldir opened his mouth to tell her, but before he could make a single utterance, she cried again, "No! Do not tell me, I do not wish to know. I will simply dress well."  
  
This, for certain, was an oddity; as absentminded as Adariel had the tendency of being, she rarely was so... conflicting, if that was the correct word. She sighed and told him, "Thank you for delivering the message. I trust I shall see you at this torture session Lord Elrond insists is a banquet?"  
  
Still slightly off-set by Adariel's swift, abrupt changes, Haldir nodded and said, "Indeed."  
  
"Good, now that the matter is assured, I believe I shall depart for my chambers. If I must partake in this over-done dinner Elrond insists on, I shall do so looking my best. If you will excuse me?"  
  
And she was gone before he could reply.  
  
*  
  
Adariel was still trying to regain her equilibrium when she arrived in her chambers.  
  
'I trust I shall see you at this torture session Lord Elrond insists is a banquet?' The question had come unbidden and unwanted. It had crossed her mind, of course, but she had not, in any way whatsoever, given her mouth permission to utter the words.  
  
It was that balance, more than the banquet itself, that had sent her into such a snit. She did, indeed, dislike the large public banquets her uncle occasionally held, but they never off-set her so much as this. No: indeed, this mental chaos had been caused by Adariel herself.  
  
What, in the name of all that was good and green in Middle-earth, had made her ask that question? She didn't know, and, somehow, didn't care to know: the prospect of what her reaction to the answer might be averted her from desiring that bit of knowledge.  
  
^*^  
  
The banquet itself was not as terrible as Adariel had feared. She had, actually, enjoyed herself much more than she expected. Of course, that was, more than likely, directly effected by the amount of people who spoke to her. Or, perhaps, lack thereof: only those whom she regarded as friends or better pressed their presence upon her.  
  
Haldir even seemed to forget her odd behavior from earlier in the day. Or, so she had hoped. When she asked him, however, if he was enjoying himself, he said, "Indeed, my lady. No, perhaps not. Wait! I am, yes. I am enjoying myself."  
  
Adariel gave him an indignant look, pinched his arm when she could not find a better response, and immediately moved on to speak to Arwen as he glared at her for her physical attack. But, for all her mock irritation, she could not help but find the amusement in the situation, just as she could not fight the relief that coursed through her. Her odd behavior was worth of being mocked, but of no more note than that to Haldir. That was the way she wanted things.  
  
She spent much of her time with Arwen, who shared her dislike of social gatherings, even if the Evenstar was not so averted to them as the Morelen. More than a few times, Adariel had caught Elrond watching her, looking (if she could believe it of him) uncertain of something. As the night wore on, she noticed it less and less, just as his uncertainty diminished.  
  
Perhaps, she wondered, Elrond's glances were because of the strange resemblance she had to Arwen on that particular night? The Undómiel wore what Adariel had come to call her Evenstar gown: a beautiful, flowing white gown, its intricately-beaded material draping off her gracefully.  
  
Adariel's gown was much the same, save for color: the hue darker, a hue that was much like her eyes, only more purple. A violet-tinted black with intricate beading that glimmered when the light hit them, just as they did in Arwen's gown.  
  
In all honesty, when Adariel and Arwen had arrived together, Elrond had looked stricken. A strange thought, indeed. It was rumored that Arwen had been a twin, and that the twin had been lost: perhaps Adariel reminded him of his lost child.  
  
The banquet itself was enjoyable. Afterward, however, Adariel had had her fill of social pleasantries. Some of the Elves went into a chamber to occupy themselves with verses, others - marginally those that would be considered young adults by the terms of Men - out into the gardens. Adariel herself paid little attention to those left, and went out to a separate part of the garden on her own.  
  
She leaned against the railing, watching as the falls from the river fell in lacy white sheets to the bottom, where a large stream, or small river, flowed through the Dell. There was so much that she had managed to clutter her mind with that she felt as if she were losing her sanity. This, she decided, was a very opportune time to attempt at placing herself back into her order, and perhaps put her life back to how it was before... everything. When her life was normal.  
  
First, there was Elrond. He had always had occasions where he acted very odd, but never so much as this. Whether it was something she had done? That was, indeed, a possibility, but it was extremely improbable, for two reasons: Elrond did not hold grudges easily, and it did not explain his odd phases in her younger years. This, she decided, was a situation beyond her control; she could do nothing before Elrond gave himself peace about whatever it was that had bothered him all those years.  
  
Next came her siblings. She still had Aradalien, but Nurardaion was gone. Aradalien had made it quite clear that she did not blame Adariel, as had Noviel and all the others that were affected directly by what had happened. All the same, he had died defending her and her twin, something which may have never occurred had she not left so rashly. It was something she would never forget.  
  
This, of course, brought her to her next trouble, the reason she left so rashly in the first place: Dimalphion. She had stood up to him for sake of Vinya... or so Haldir thought: she had not fought back nearly crippling fear to confront the serpent for the sake of one loved-one, but for the sake of all who were close to her. Dimalphion had realized that, she knew. But, for all her feigned bravery, she was still terrified of him and what he could do. And yet, his inactivity had brought her to believe that, perhaps, he had lost interest. She knew she should have known better than to fall for the false security she had developed, but the hope that he would simply leave her alone crept into her mind more and more daily, and soon she believed herself partially safe at the least.  
  
Haldir. The enigma that was at the back of her mind constantly since the day she met him, half dead already and dying, in the woods of Lothlórien. Her thoughts made even less sense to her than the Elf who caused them, which was, indeed, saying something. At first, there were times when she wanted nothing more than to take a stick and hit him upside the head with it, and other times were the exact opposite. Then she began, Valar forbid, to like him. Now, he was a friend; more than that, a dear friend. And yet, there was something... Something that she had not yet discovered, that was lying just below the surface. She both wanted it and feared it. Adariel did not know what that "something" was, but she did know that it would change her perspective of everything. She did not know whether to welcome it.  
  
"Are you always so solitary?"  
  
She turned to find the object of her thoughts standing at the entrance to the balcony. She smiled, tucking her thoughts away for later contemplation. "Only when I am forced into large social gatherings such as this."  
  
"I see." He came forward to stand beside her, watching the scenery rather than watch her, for which she was thankful. "You told me once, Morelen," he said when he stood at the rail, his eyes on the water, "that there was only one person in the world that you could be mistaken for. Lady Aradalien, if I remember correctly, was that person. But, I would like to point out that, for as long as I have been here, I find that I could only possibly confuse you for the Undómiel, particularly this night."  
  
Was he teasing her? Somehow, she did not believe that. "You give me flattery undeserved by saying so, Marchwarden," Adariel told him. "Indeed, Arwen and I look similar, but hardly so similar that we could take each other's places."  
  
"Perhaps so, but you closer in appearance to Arwen than Aradalien. Speaking of your sister, she appears to be fairing much better than before."  
  
"She is, thank you."  
  
He turned to her suddenly, looking very serious. "And yourself?"  
  
She grinned, effectively hiding (and ignoring) that her heart was suddenly beating much faster than she felt it had the right to. "With you watching my every move over the past few weeks, how could I not improve?"  
  
"I have no control over the regard you hold yourself in," he said, and she realized what he was asking. She looked away.  
  
"I no longer blame myself completely," she said, her voice slightly chilly.  
  
"But you still do."  
  
"What is there for it? I always will. I had a choice, and I made the wrong one. I have been forgiven by those who matter, and thus I am, for the most part, at peace. But I will always hold guilt for it."  
  
Suddenly he swung her around to face him, gripping both of her shoulders tightly. "Why?" he demanded. "Why do you torment yourself? Do you realize that you are doing exactly what he wants?"  
  
"What?" she demanded in turn, utterly confused.  
  
"Think, Adariel! What did we find when we came to where your brother had been killed?"  
  
She blinked up at him, too confused to be very irritated, but she mentally searched for the answer to her question. Adariel had tried very, very hard to forget that day, and had nigh well succeeded, and thus was having slight difficulty remembering. Her memory was not that of a bow, in that once it was snapped, everything was remembered-  
  
Bow. The arrow. The one that had killed Nurar.  
  
Perhaps something had shown on her face, because Haldir's hold on her shoulders lightened to a more comforting grip. "I have tried," she said at length, staring at something Haldir could not see, her voice soft and faint, "so very hard to forget it. And because of it, I have walked straight into the trap that was laid for me." She looked up at him. "Am I really so blind?"  
  
Haldir sighed and put an arm around her shoulders, propelling her toward a nearby bench. "You are blind," he told her, "in the face of your concern for others. I have stated before my belief that you place all of the guilt on yourself because you do not wish others to feel that guilt. There, Adariel, is where you are blind."  
  
She sat silently for some time, contemplating something at which he could not guess. Eventually, it appeared that she had come to several conclusions. And so it was with a clear gaze that she looked back at him. Clear, but puzzled.  
  
"May I ask you something?" she asked.  
  
"Of course."  
  
She stood and stepped toward him so that her voice need not be any louder than a near-whisper. "Why have do done so much for me?"  
  
There was no way he could avoid the question. Not this time. He watched her for a few moments, trying to decide what to say in response. Eventually, when he found no response, he said in a voice just as quite as hers had been, "I don't know."  
  
She nodded once, slowly. "I see. In any case, however, you have..." she looked away, looking for the words, "done much more than anyone has. I- I don't know how I can ever repay you-"  
  
"You need not do any such thing, my lady. I ask for nothing."  
  
"Should you change your mind, ever, tell me," she said.  
  
They both fell silent then, and in that moment something happened to show Adariel a bit of what that thing in her mind that she had not yet discovered, that thing just below the surface. 'Oh, dear,' she thought, just before she found herself with Haldir's lips against hers.  
  
The instant was both a life-age of the earth and a millisecond all at once. Of course, it might have been longer, if not for the voice of Arwen cutting through the fog of Adariel's mind. Arwen was searching for her.  
  
Their moment ended, and Adariel took a step back, attempting to clear her mind. Neither said a word, but when Arwen called again, Adariel turned and left.  
  
^*^  
  
I hope to have the next chapter to you soon.  
  
Hugs  
  
Carlee 


	12. Revelations and High Strung Emotions

Here 'tis! Not much for me to say, really. So, enjoy  
  
Part Twelve  
  
Revelations and High-Strung Emotions  
  
Arwen had called her to a discussion on healing arts that Adariel was not able to concentrate on. In fact, she had excused herself early and barricaded herself in her chambers. She had shed herself of her gown and had extinguished her candle in hope of sleeping away her torrent of emotions; no such luck was with her, however, and she spent her night pacing a moonlit chamber, thinking about much but accomplishing little. Finally, she paced herself into exhaustion, and fell asleep roughly an hour before dawn, which was her usual waking time.  
  
That day, however, she awoke at ten o'clock in the morning, a full four hours after dawn. She had hoped that sleep would clear her mind, but again, she was not so lucky. What had happened? That question was silly: she knew what had happened. Why had it happened? That was not so easy to answer, nor was it silly.  
  
She had realized just before their... moment: Haldir was more to her than a dear friend. She hadn't known what he was, but she had realized that he was dearer to her than a friend. With this realization she had reached a point where she could not return from. Of course, she had never expected for everything to be shoved forward several steps. But with that movement, her realization had enlarged to reveal to her all of what she both feared to know and desired to know.  
  
She was in love with him.  
  
Adariel had not dared to utter this realization aloud; couldn't do it, somehow. As it was, there were questions that frightened her just as much as her new realization did. Perhaps because they were so closely related to that realization? She wanted to know why he'd done it. Had it been purely impulse? Something else? What had he been thinking? What had she been thinking?  
  
Those were the least of it.  
  
Her mind chased itself in circles, and the entire mess revolved around that stupid Marchwarden. Given her lack of progress, she prepared herself to face the day, and was mentally preparing herself for leaving her chamber - and thus running the risk of meeting Haldir - when there was a knock at her door.  
  
She stared at it for a moment, both terrified and hopeful that it was Haldir. Either way, she didn't move. But when the knocked a second time, she slowly walked to the door and opened it. To both her disappointment and relief, it was not Haldir.  
  
"My lady, Lord Elrond would like you to see him, if you may," the young man, whom she did not recognize, told her.  
  
Thankful for the distraction, she said, "Of course. Where is he?"  
  
"In his study, Morelen."  
  
She nodded to him. "Thank you," she murmured before leaving, closing the door behind her.  
  
At her surrogate uncle's study, she knock in the large mahogany doors before entering without a response. "Elrond?" she called. "Someone told me that you wished to see me."  
  
Into her view came the Lord of Rivendell, smiling at her. "They told you correctly. I would ask you to come in, but I see that you have already permitted yourself."  
  
She smiled back, a bit of her tension, caused by her incident with Haldir the night before, melted away. "Of course," she said simply, entering the large study. "What else should be expected from one such as myself?"  
  
"Nothing less, my dear."  
  
As she came closer, Adariel saw Elrond's unease. She knew that, for this unease to be visible, it would have to be very, very great. Her concern was immediate. "Does something trouble you?" she asked.  
  
He sighed and said, "Come with me."  
  
They walked through the study silently, out into the halls, through several corridors, before turning back to the corridor on which they had started their walk. They went back into the study and out onto the balcony, where the sheer precipice of the waterfall was in clear view.  
  
"We have wandered through several halls, Elrond," she said with a wry smile, "and neither of us as voice a word." He watched the water as her expression grew more worried. "What is it, Uncle? If something trouble you, I would have you tell me, particularly if it makes the burden easier to bear."  
  
Elrond looked back at her and then took both her hand in his own. "Adariel," he began. It was rather hesitant, which bothered her: she had never seen Elrond of Rivendell so ill at ease, it simply wasn't his nature. "What if I were to tell you that you are not who you believe yourself to be?"  
  
An odd question, to be sure. Adariel did not know how to react. "What do you mean?" she asked slowly. "Am I not Adariel, daughter of Nimrómen and Avarlammeniel?"  
  
"You are Adariel, and ever shall you be Adariel, however-"  
  
Elrond stopped, and her confusion grew to rival that which Haldir had caused, which was truly saying something of it. But she could not help the concern that rose in her: she had known Elrond Peredhil to lose his eloquence only once, when Celebrían had went away.  
  
"You know that Aradalien, Arwen, and yourself were born on the same night, do you not?" She nodded. "And you know that both Celebrían and Avarlammeniel had twins that night?"  
  
"I have heard the rumors," she said hesitantly.  
  
"Those rumors are true, Adariel. They both gave birth to twin girls, but one child was lost. One of the mid-wives was a novice assistant; you and Aradalien looked unusually alike, and thus she believed that it had been Celebrían to lose a child."  
  
Adariel had, somehow, forgotten how to breathe. "But she didn't lose a child, did she?" she managed.  
  
"No," Elrond confirmed quietly. "She did not. Avarlammeniel lost her second daughter, and both of Celebrían's children - both of my children - survived."  
  
"And, I assume, given that it is me you are now speaking to," she said in a very shaky voice, "that Aradalien is not the mistakenly misplaced child."  
  
He ignored her comment. "No one knew of the mistake until three weeks after your birth Celebrían had suspicions, but I had thought that they were merely thoughts spurned by denial of our child's death. By the time I realized that she was right, and the novice came forward about her mistake, it was too late: Nimrómen had already claimed you as his daughter, and while I do not believe Avarlammeniel ever did the same, she wanted her husband to be happy, and so she stood by him when he demanded that they keep you. Knowing that you would be raised as a second child to us, Celebrían and I relented. But out of respect for us, Avarlammeniel and Nimrómen gave you a name of our choosing.  
  
"And, thus, you grew to know Celebrían and I as second parents, just as we knew you would. We wanted to tell you, but they would not have it. When Nimrómen left for Valinor, he allowed me to tell you, so long as you were ready for the information."  
  
He stopped, and after a moment Adariel slipped her hands from his and walked past him, to the end of the balcony. Her mind was buzzing, much like it had been after her incident with Haldir. This time, however, it was worse: the tangled knot between herself and Haldir seemed so very small compared to this.  
  
Elrond was her father.  
  
She was not, in all honesty, sure how to take the news. Part of her told her to be angry at them all, for hiding the truth from her for so long. Another, to smile and be glad for it. Some other part of her ordered her feel empty, for the loss of her believed-family. Another, to simply move to Mirkwood and leave this mess and all her other messes behind. She had a cousin in Mirkwood-  
  
No, she didn't have a cousin in Mirkwood. Aradalien had a cousin in Mirkwood. But she, Adariel, did not.  
  
Many things were explained by this, of course. Particularly Avarlammeniel's treatment of her, compared to that of the Lady of Rivendell; Celebrían had always been more of a mother to her than Avarlammeniel. Her difference in appearance to her "twin," Aradalien. Her resemblance to Arwen.  
  
Suddenly she thought back to her girlhood. She had been sitting with Nimrómen, and had grinned up at him. At that, his expression had abruptly become sad. "Your eyes look so very much like Lady Celebrían's," he had said sadly.  
  
"Is that not a good thing, Ada?" she had asked, confused by his expression.  
  
"Of course it is, Morelen. Of course it is," her father had replied.  
  
No. Not her father. Nimrómen was not her father.  
  
She should have been angry. She should have been hurt. She should have been happy. She "should have been" many things, but primarily she was simply stunned.  
  
"Who knows?"  
  
"Nimrómen and Avarlammeniel. Celebrían and myself. I'm sure Lady Galadriel knows, and thus Lord Celeborn, as well. And mistress Malfalothien; she was the assistant who made the mistake."  
  
Adariel turned to him abruptly, but reached out a hand to cling to the rail, for fear of her knees folding from underneath her. "Malfalothien? Celebnoviel's mother?"  
  
Elrond nodded. "The very same."  
  
Mal? Mal had known all along? A small flame of anger flared up inside her. Malfalothien had known of Avarlammeniel's treatment toward her, and yet Mal had never said a word.  
  
"You must understand, Adariel," Elrond said, as if her thoughts were displayed on her face, "Nimrómen wanted no one to tell you, nor anyone else, of what had happened. He only grudgingly permitted me to tell you when he left. Malfalothien requested to be moved to the kitchens that night, and we allowed it under the condition that she would never utter the words aloud."  
  
"Why?" she asked, genuinely confused. Why would the man posing as her father not want her to know the truth?  
  
"I asked him the question as well. He told me that he wished you not to know because you seemed happy in your place as his child, and you seemed to have no suspicions. That was what he said aloud. However, I think that part of his reason was his own selfishness." At her confused look he explained, "He did not want to lose you."  
  
"Happy as his child? Perhaps. But..." She shook her head. "Mo- Avarlammeniel, well, she was not fond of me, one could say."  
  
No suspicions? She looked back out at the scenery with a frown. Yes, a very large part of her was stunned to the point of numbness: she couldn't even think.  
  
But a very small part of her wasn't surprised at all.  
  
That small part of her had suspected it all along.  
  
"I don't- I don't know what you want me to say," she said shakily.  
  
"I want you to say what you're thinking, Adariel. What you're feeling."  
  
"I don't know what I'm thinking, nor what I'm feeling." She turned back around to face him. "I was just told that everything I had believed my entire life was a lie. What am I supposed to think and feel?"  
  
He moved forward slowly as he spoke. "You could feel angry. At myself, and everyone else who knew. You could feel disappointed. You could feel elated. You could feel nothing. You could feel a mixture of all of them. I would not know, Adariel; I have never been through a situation such as the one I have now placed you in."  
  
She gave him a half-hearted smile. "Not you alone. You were not the one to told everyone to keep it from me..." She frowned, suddenly feeling both hurt and rather angry. "How could he, as the man who claimed to be my father, keep something like this from me? That hurts much more than the truth ever would."  
  
Elrond laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. "He thought that he was doing the right thing. Whether or not it truly was the right thing shall be decided, but he did what he thought was best."  
  
She gave a short, sardonic laugh. "'Best?' What is better than the truth?"  
  
"Would you have taken this so well as a young girl? Or an adolescent? We agreed to wait until you were at an age where you could handle the news rationally. Nimrómen believed you to be his daughter for the first three weeks of your life. Surely you know the impact the knowledge that you were not his would make?"  
  
Adariel didn't reply. She saw Elrond's point, but she could not help the bit of hurt that had sprung up at the knowledge that the entire conspiracy had been initiated by her "father." She looked up at Elrond. "And what of you?" she asked. "What was the impact for you?"  
  
"I took the information as well as any father could," he told her with a sad smile. "But I looked more toward the fact that you were alive and well than the fact that you were not in my home being raised as my daughter."  
  
After a pause, she said, "You know, many things are suddenly explained with this revelation. I simply need the time to adjust to the idea. I-"  
  
"I understand," Elrond told her. "Come with me."  
  
She followed him back into his study, where he went to the desk and picked up something.  
  
"You have seen Arwen's pendent, have you not?"  
  
"I have."  
  
"This would have been yours," he said, "but circumstances did not allow it then. Now that the truth is known to you, it is yours now."  
  
With that he handed her a mithril chain, on which hung a pendent shaped exactly like Arwen's, with blue-violet stone set in mithril. The Evenstar was white, set in mithril.  
  
"The Darkstar, pendent of the Morelen," Elrond informed her. "You."  
  
Her hands trembled, but she closed them over the jewel as she looked up at her real father. "Thank you," she said quietly, "for telling me everything."  
  
Suddenly, surprising them both, she hugged him tightly before leaving swiftly, departing just as suddenly as she had embraced him.  
  
It was some time later before Adariel stirred herself. She had gone to her chamber, locked the door and closed the curtains, then went out on the balcony and ruminated on the knowledge of her parentage.  
  
When she finally did move, she went back into her room and over to the desk, where she had lain the Darkstar pendent. Hesitantly she picked it up, then went over to her rectangular-shaped floor-length mirror. The she-Elf that stared back at her was confused, yet tranquil. She looked down at the pendent.  
  
Putting it on would be the equivalent of acknowledging her true parentage and accepting it. By donning that necklace, she would declare herself the daughter of Elrond and Celebrían. Had she accepted the fact? Or was she still unsure?  
  
She unclasped the chain and, after a moment's hesitation, slowly brought it up to clasp it around her neck. Before, it had merely reflected light; now that she wore it, the necklace seemed to have a light to it that it did not have before.  
  
It had found its owner.  
  
It unnerved her, so she changed into a high-collared violet gown that hid the necklace from view. She did not, however, remove the pendent; she would need it for her discussion with Arwen, should Elrond permit it.  
  
"Adariel, we have sat here for nearly half of an hour now. Do you plan on having that conversation you brought me here for?" Arwen was more amused than irritated, watching her companion with masked concern.  
  
They sat on the large rock that Adariel had laid upon the day before, letting the river cool their bare feet. The sun shined brightly, but not harshly, and a slightly breeze kept the air cool. Despite the pleasant atmosphere, Adariel was anxious beyond reason. Elrond had assured her that Arwen would react well, but no amount of assurance could banish her fear entirely.  
  
Hesitantly, she began, "I- Something was revealed to me today, Arwen."  
  
Arwen made small splashes with her feet, watching the patterns in which the liquid fell, returning to itself. "What was revealed to you today?"  
  
"That... those who claimed to be my parents are not."  
  
The Undómiel looked at her, surprised. "What do you mean?"  
  
"Nimrómen and Avarlammeniel are not my parents. Elrond and Celebrían are."  
  
"But you and I are the same age! The only way our parents could be the same would be if we were-"  
  
"Twins." Adariel explained everything to her new-found sister, anxiously awaiting her reaction at the end. Indeed, the Morelen did not know what to make of Arwen's silence at the end of the tale.  
  
"So, you and I," Arwen said slowly after a silence that was far too long for Adariel's comfort, "have been sisters - twins, no less - all these years, and have never known?"  
  
"Yes." Adariel reached under her collar for the chain. "If you like, I can show you proof." She pulled out the necklace.  
  
Arwen study the necklace, then it wearer, meticulously for some time, once again making Adariel nervous, before breaking out into a very large smile and flinging her arms around her friend, now sister.  
  
"I have always considered you a sister of the heart, now I discover that it was true in blood as well!" she cried, laughing. "And if Adariel accepts this news, then I accept it wholeheartedly." She pulled away then jumped off the rock and grabbed Adariel's hand. "Come! We must share this news-"  
  
"Arwen, wait!" Adariel cried, panicked. "You must understand, as much as I welcome it, I am still adjusting to everything. I have lived a lie the majority of my life; living the truth is something I must get used to. We may tell Elladan and Elrohir, but no more. Elrond- I mean, our father, had already informed me that he will tell Aradalien."  
  
"All right," Arwen said. "Let us tell our brothers, then."  
  
Adariel nodded and climbed off the rock, and as soon as she was down Arwen raced toward the practice courts, where they were most likely to find Elladan and Elrohir, towing Adariel along with her.  
  
She was hardly paying attention to the twists and turns Arwen took along the way, and thus, when the she-Elf stopped abruptly, Adariel ran straight into her.  
  
"Elladan!" Arwen called. "Elrohir! We have much to discuss with you!"  
  
Adariel's heart jumped into her throat when, as she looked around the practice court Arwen had brought them to, she found Haldir. She owed it to him, as a friend, to tell him of what had recently been revealed to her. But then she remembered the night before, and what had happened, and edged away from the idea.  
  
How could she tell him that, when she had yet to sort through what was between them?  
  
Before she realized what was happening, and before she could change her mind again about telling Haldir, she was suddenly being towed away again; this time, Elrond's twin sons were in their company. Arwen led them back to the rock beside the river, effectively blocking all of the questions her brothers flung at her.  
  
Their brothers...  
  
"So, do either of you care to tell us why we are here?" Elrohir asked.  
  
Adariel explained everything again. Elladan and his brother both reacted similarly to Arwen; their manner was much more masculine, of course, but the reactions were essentially corresponding.  
  
"Have you told Aradalien yet?" Elladan asked once they had all calmed down enough for intelligible conversation.  
  
"Our father is going to," Adariel answered. "But I must ask you not to mention this to anyone. For my sake; I am still adjusting to everything."  
  
Elrohir's countenance was suddenly very mischievous. "Then we shall aid in your transition as much as we can."  
  
Adariel laughed. "Somehow I think that it bodes ill for me."  
  
"Of course it doesn't!" Elrohir said, mock indignant.  
  
"I'm sure," she countered dryly. "I think I will now go find some project with which to ensnare my time before I confront Aradalien. Somehow I feel that things will not go over very well." She nodded to them and left.  
  
Once she was out of view, she reached up and tucked the pendent back under her collar. As she did so, she decided that if she were to meet Haldir on her way toward the library, she would simply apologize to him for her conduct and then ask if they could go back to normal; all she really wanted, after all, was her friend.  
  
Despite the realization that her feelings were... slightly more than platonic.  
  
Haldir was sensible: he could make sense of anything he did not make confusing. If anyone could help her through this sudden revelation of her parentage, it was him. She would much rather have him there as her friend than admit everything and lose him completely.  
  
It was then that the realization she had made about Haldir collided with the new revelation concerning her parentage. The thought was staggering, literally: she stumbled to a stunned halt when it occurred to her.  
  
As Elrond's daughter, the court and people would expect her to live in Rivendell. If she did move location, the only cause would be for marriage. Marriage, however, required someone of equal rank: Prince Legolas of Mirkwood, or his younger brother, perhaps. A son of one of the higher-placed families in Rivendell or Lothlórien. But a marchwarden? Elrond - her father - might approve, but the court? Never. Even if they would allow it, she would have to remain in Imladris to compensate for the blow to her "rank." He loved being a marchwarden; she could never ask him to leave that behind.  
  
This was all, of course, implying that anything happened. Even after the previous night's events, her new, sudden rank might - and more than likely would - prove to be a very effective deterrent.  
  
For once, perhaps, fate was on her side, for it was only moments after she made decision, when her resolution was still strong, that she met up with the very Elf she had been hoping to: she turned a corner and, at the other end of the small clearing, stood Haldir.  
  
Of course, her heart leaped and began a very rapid tattoo at the sight of him, but she gave it no heed.  
  
"I was looking for you," he said after a moment.  
  
"And I you," she replied, because, while she hadn't been actively seeking him out, she had hoped that she would meet him along the way. "I wished to apologize for what happened yesterday-"  
  
"Perhaps it is I, my lady, who should apologize?" His smile was wry, but there was something in his look - in his eyes, perhaps - that took away from the smile.  
  
"The both of us, then." Adariel moved forward and extended a hand. "Friends?"  
  
He shook her hand. "Agreed."  
  
"Adariel!" Melian burst into the clearing, her timing rather inconvenient. "The infirmary! It's- It's- The sedative fusion is gone!"  
  
She stared as she moved toward the girl. "What?" she demanded.  
  
"I've been looking for you everywhere. I went this morning to see if you had arrived, and it was there, but I went this afternoon and it was gone. And the infirmary itself... The state is dire."  
  
All other thoughts left her mind as Adariel fell in step beside Melian. "Exactly what time where you there this morning."  
  
"Nine o'clock or so, I would say."  
  
"And when were you there last?"  
  
"Twenty minutes ago. As soon as I saw what had happened, I came to find you."  
  
"And I thank you for it. Do you know of anyone who might have gone in there to find something and took our fusion by mistake?"  
  
"If that were the case, I would happily tell you any possible answer to your question. However, given the state of things, I feel that it is not the case."  
  
"'State of things?'" she repeated. "Are things really that bad?" Melian opened the door.  
  
Adariel's infirmary lay in devastation. Whoever had done it all had come through the window: the curtain was torn, and hung pathetically from one end. The perpetrator had also been clumsy, or else they were cruel: the table near the window was on its side. Most of what had been on it was glass: flasks, glasses, a pitcher of water, and, the worse of it all, two poison antidotes, were all scattered on the floor, decimated.  
  
They hadn't stopped there: there were two overturned beds, one of her herb cabinets had been pushed over, the glass doors shattered, the contents strewn over the floor, and a pillow had been shredded.  
  
Adariel braced herself on Melian's shoulder, to keep herself from collapsing. "Elbereth," she breathed, horrified.  
  
"Terrible, isn't it? I didn't know what to do."  
  
"You did the right thing," Adariel said faintly. "How could you tell that the sedative fusion was gone?"  
  
"The first thing I did was check to see if anything was stolen. There is, clearly, plenty of damage, but that fusion is the only thing that was taken," Melian replied.  
  
Adariel nodded vaguely in understanding. "Inform Elrond of what has happened. I will- I will try to clean some of this..."  
  
"Yes, my lady," the she-Elf said, and she quickly left to do as requested.  
  
Nearly frozen with horror, Adariel moved into the infirmary to begin cleaning up. The task, however, was nearly overwhelming; she didn't even know where to begin. After a moment, she walked over to the window and straightened the curtain. It was useless: it had been shredded to the point of being no more than bits of cloth.  
  
She squeezed her eyes shut against the tears that threatened, and only opened them again when she was sure that they would not fall. She took down the curtains, then went over to the cabinet and righted it. Looking down, she saw that many of the herbs had spilt, and that the majority of those that had spilt had been crushed.  
  
Slowly, Adariel began to gather the glass and herbs into a pile, not realizing that she used naught but her hands. When the majority of it was gathered, she went to the table and righted it, then began to do the same for the glass on the floor there.  
  
Footsteps sounded in the outer corridor, and she looked up as Elrond, Melian, and Noviel came to the doorway. Noviel gasped and covered her mouth with both hands.  
  
"What happened?" Elrond demanded.  
  
"Someone wanted our sedative fusion," Adariel said faintly. "And so they took it."  
  
Elrond muttered something under his breath as he moved forward and grabbed Adariel by both of her upper arms, pulling her up. He examined her hands. "What were you doing, entertaining yourself with the glass?"  
  
"I was trying to clean it," she said faintly.  
  
"If you could, would the two of you-"  
  
"Of course, my lord," Noviel said as Elrond ushered Adariel out of the infirmary and across the hall.  
  
"I understand that you are upset, Adariel, but I would expect you to have the sense to not use your hands to clean glass," he muttered as he pushed her into a chair.  
  
"The sedative fusion I don't mind. They can have it; we weren't even finished. But destroying everything?"  
  
"No one knows the reasons why people do things. The best thing we can hope for is that they will tell us themselves," Elrond told her, cleaning the small cuts on her palms with a cloth.  
  
Adariel snorted. "I am so utterly positive that this person will come forward and tell us all why they destroyed my infirmary."  
  
"Nothing is ever impossible, nor is anything completely and totally assured. They may yet come forward."  
  
She said nothing as the Elf she now called father cleaned her self-induced wounds and placed a light layer of ointment over the worst of them. "Now," he told her when he was through, "you will go out, perhaps with a book, and collect your senses, and you will not come back until we need you for the assessments of what we lost."  
  
Nodding, she stood and left the room, going to her own chambers, where she found her book. She then went out to a small bridge that crossed the equally small river and sat there, still completely dazed. Her infirmary was decimated, many of the herbs that had taken her and the other healers so long to find, prepare, and preserve, destroyed.  
  
She looked down at her hands. The cuts were not numerous, but nor were they few. The sheer stupidity that had caused to her attempt to pick up glass with her bare hands had been induced by shock: to her stunned mind, it had been natural to begin picking up the glass immediately, without taking the time to find the proper utensils for such a task.  
  
She sighed and shifted her eyes to the water. Thinking back on the day's events thus far, Adariel could not help but decide that her summation was not comforting. From the most recent on, her infirmary had been decimated, she'd had her entire life turned completely around by one revelation concerning parentage, and she had admitted something that she never would have expected - even if she had admitted it only to herself, and had not even voiced it aloud.  
  
But then, since her realization about how any relationship with Haldir would end, she had tried very hard not to think of those particular feelings.  
  
Adariel shifted to lie on her stomach and flipped open her book. If she had to wait for them to summon her, she may as well do so while doing something other than focusing on her tumultuous day. It was at least an hour later when Aradalien found her.  
  
"You accept it so easily?"  
  
Adariel looked up at her, puzzled. "What?"  
  
"You were raised as the child of Nimrómen and Avarlammeniel. You abandon us readily," Aradalien accused. The Morelen sat up on her knees, watching her one-time sister warily.  
  
"I accepted the truth," Adariel said cautiously. "And what do you mean, 'us?'"  
  
"Truth!" she repeated harshly. "How do we know that this is the truth? And by 'us' I mean that you abandoned Mother, Father, me, Nurar-"  
  
"I did not abandon you!" she said defensively. "Why would Elrond lie about this?"  
  
"Everyone knows that he lost a daughter the night we were born," Aradalien snapped. "He is using you to replace her."  
  
"I find that very hard-"  
  
"If you are willing to abandon you family, it is no business of mine. But do make sure to sever the ties completely."  
  
With that, the very sudden confrontation was ended: Aradalien marched away as swiftly as she had appeared.  
  
Adariel felt ill at heart from Aradalien's words. She knew that they were false, but they hurt, all the same. She had hoped that Nimrómen's daughter would accept that Adariel was not her sister; the transition was not easy for the Morelen, she had not thought it selfish for Aradalien, the she-Elf Adariel had believed to be her sister for so long, to accept her newly discovered parentage. Perhaps not as well as Arwen, Elrohir, and Elladan, but Adariel had hoped that it would be accepted.  
  
Perhaps she had been wrong to hope?  
  
As if summoned by her thoughts, Elrohir stepped onto the bridge and came over to sit beside her. "I saw what happened."  
  
"What do you make of it?" she asked, wondering if he meant the infirmary or the encounter with Aradalien.  
  
"I think that she feels abandoned. She lost her brother, and now she is losing her sister. Can you imagine what that must be like?"  
  
Adariel frowned. "No," she said after a moment. "I cannot. It must be terrible." She looked at her brother. "But surely she can realize that this is difficult for me as well?"  
  
Elrohir shrugged. "We are not all like you, Adariel. We cannot all see past our own hurt to help another cope."  
  
"But I never implied that," she said, rather defensively.  
  
"Of course not," he said, as if it were obvious. "You would never admit to being the good soul that you are. Now," he stood and stepped behind her, placing both hands on her shoulders. "I told you that I would to my best to make your transition as easy as possible, did I not?"  
  
"You did," Adariel confirmed cautiously.  
  
"Well, your induction begins now!"  
  
And with a hearty shove, he pushed her off the small bridge and into the water.  
  
Adariel hardly even had time to gasp before she hit the water. And, unfortunately, all that remained of Elrohir when she surfaced was the echo of his laughter. With an aggravated sigh, she made her way toward the edge of the water, wading up with some difficulty.  
  
"How is it that you always managed to-"  
  
She looked up as Haldir, of all people to find her in such a state, stopped and covered his mouth with a hand. His eyes were laughing. She glared at him.  
  
"This is not amusing," she said flatly.  
  
He cleared his throat and swallowed a smile, apparently now straight-faced. "Of course not," he said, the quintessence of seriousness. "What happened?"  
  
"Elrohir," she said dryly. That, apparently, was the only explanation needed, because Haldir's forced seriousness was gone, and Adariel could tell that he was struggling not to laugh outright.  
  
"That makes a few things slightly clearer," he admitted.  
  
Thankfully, even in ankle-deep water her gown wasn't to long to be free of the water, so with the hem and a few inches extra floating in the water, the fabric didn't cling to her legs in very much of a revealing manner, but she couldn't say as much about her top half, to her chagrin. Looking down at it, she couldn't help but make a face that showed just how uncomfortable with her state of dress she was.  
  
"I am glad," she said grumpily, crossing her arms over her chest for both a display of irritation and to hide the fact that her gown was soaked.  
  
"Here," he said, grabbing her shoulders and pulling her out of the water. To his extreme credit, Haldir's eyes remained locked on her face, not once traveling any lower than her neck, for which Adariel was incredibly grateful. Her situation was already embarrassing enough. He swung off his cloak and settled it over her, deftly fastening the Lórien-leaf clasp before she could protest.  
  
The thing was certainly overly-large for her: not only was Haldir much taller than Adariel, but his shoulders were much broader, and consequently the garment hung on her almost in mockery of her state.  
  
Instead of leaving the cloak at that, however, Adariel found her companion pulling the thing around her snugly. She arched her eyebrows and said, "You needn't play hero."  
  
He flashed her a cheeky grin. "It is my duty, my Lady," he informed her.  
  
"Hmm," she murmured skeptically, stepping closer to peer directly up into his eyes, her own eyes rather squinted. "Is that so, Marchwarden?"  
  
"It is so." Suddenly his voice was quiet, and her heart skipped a beat.  
  
There must have been some sort of witty retort on the tip of her tongue, but somehow it got lost, and was never voiced. So she tried to find another one, the only problem being that she couldn't seem to get her mind to focus. It really wasn't fair. She was determined to put everything behind her, preserving her friendship with Haldir and keeping her heart intact. Of course, things couldn't go the way she wanted them to. That would make her life far too easy.  
  
Adariel opened her mouth to say something - anything - though her mind wasn't necessarily clear on what it was going to say, when warm lips met hers, effectively stifling whatever it was she had been about to say.  
  
The last time she had found herself in this position, she had been just as surprised. This time, however, she was more able to react. Or, at least more able to function mentally.  
  
She had been kissed before; despite her own lack of words on the subject, she'd had admirers, though she was always happy to note that she hadn't had as many as Aradalien. And before she would have said that kissing was, well, kissing. Nothing too terribly special. But now... Now something was different. Something had changed.  
  
Breathing became difficult, but it wasn't accompanied by the traditional grief or guilt; this time, it was a pleasant feeling, something that thoroughly confused her. Her heart was racing, and her head spinning, but for the strangest reason nothing objected to this. Her senses reeled and she didn't know which way was up and which way was down, but she didn't care. The lack of control that she had over her own self, for once, didn't matter. In fact, she didn't want it to stop.  
  
But stop it did, and eyes that she hadn't realized that she'd closed fluttered open, and arms that she hadn't known had curled themselves around his neck slid back to her sides.  
  
They both stood there, neither moving save for rather labored breathing, let alone speaking. What was she supposed to say? 'You dolt!' a part of her screamed. 'Don't say anything! Pull him back!' But Adariel couldn't get her muscles to move. Strange, how her mind and muscles were totally dense but her heart was perfectly clear, for all it was beating faster than any Elf could run.  
  
But then, another part told her that she had just thoroughly demolished her plans of ignoring her realizations about Haldir. Putting everything behind her suddenly seemed several times more difficult. 'But I didn't start it,' she thought suddenly. 'I didn't. He kissed me.'  
  
It was with that thought that she realized that, more at that moment than at any other, he had to know about her parents. He deserved to know. And she opened her mouth to tell him.  
  
"Haldir!"  
  
Adariel jumped at the call and closed her mouth. As much as she wanted to tell him, the strange spell that had woven itself around the pair was broken. Positively shattered, to be more accurate. And she couldn't call it back; she was no wizard. She wanted to speak, but the farthest she got was a slight parting of her lips. Otherwise... nothing.  
  
Haldir stepped back, a strange look in his eyes that looked almost like a mixture of some blend of emotions that neither of them, she would have guessed, could label correctly, and... was that reluctance? She hardly had a chance to decide, however, because he then turned and walked toward the voice, leaving Adariel feeling a strange sense of loss. Not knowing what to do, whether to ask him to stay or run as fast as she could for Mirkwood, she tugged his cloak tighter and walked in another direction, through the gardens toward her chambers.  
  
It was a good thing that she didn't have to think about her surroundings to get to where she wanted to go when it came to the Dell; her thoughts, at that moment, were slightly singularly-pathed.  
  
Adariel knew, without a doubt, that she could no longer simply hope to just put everything behind her. She was beyond that point now, whether by accident of design. Strangely, though, she couldn't be entirely sorry for it. Nor could she, however, be entirely happy for it. Adariel's thoughts on the matter were so confusing that it was all she could do not to run back and demand an explanation from him.  
  
Instead, however, she simply muttered to herself, "Stupid Marchwarden."  
  
She was halfway through the gardens, still focused entirely on her thoughts, when an arm grabbed her brutally from behind and a cloth was clapped over her mouth. Radiating from the cloth was a scent that she recognized all too well.  
  
'That sedative fusion!' she thought with panic, her thinking suddenly painfully clear. 'And a large amount of it too!'  
  
But before she could even attempt to call for help, everything went dark.  
  
Apparently, Orophin had made him out to be something of a chess player, because that was exactly what his younger brother had called him away from his... preoccupation... for: a chess match.  
  
His challenger, Elladan, who was already an expert at the game, beat him swiftly, at which both of Haldir's brothers were surprised. But Haldir couldn't find it in him to care a jot for it. His thoughts were otherwise occupied, and chess most certainly wasn't his engrossment.  
  
How, in the name of all Middle-earth, could he have been so stupid? Kissing Adariel had been pure impulse, but in some dark, treacherous, corner of his mind, he had been wanting to do just that for sometime. Kissing a sopping wet Elf-maiden who just happened a near-daughter to the Lord Elrond wasn't necessarily a wise idea. But had he listened to reason? No. And Adariel had once called him sensible.  
  
She didn't appear to object, but that meant little, if it meant anything at all; one could never tell with Adariel Morelen. Had she been afraid to object? He snorted sardonically. No, the only person Adariel feared was Dimalphion. Elbereth, he had seen her scold men a foot taller than her!  
  
If she hadn't been afraid, then why hadn't she said anything? 'What if she hadn't wanted to object?' that treacherous corner of his mind whispered.  
  
In the guest chambers that he'd been staying in for sometime, he sat rather heavily on the bed and rubbed his face with his hands. Stupid, stupid, stupid move on his part, and now there was nothing he could do to take it back. He hadn't even apologized! Certainly she'd now have suspicious thoughts, since she'd just removed herself from a small river. Did he not owe her an apology?  
  
The problem was, he wasn't sorry for it.  
  
Haldir was on the verge of growling in frustration when a gentle knock interrupted his thoughts. Without thinking, he jumped to his feet and had the door open in an instant, and was surprised to find Arwen standing before him, looking almost concerned.  
  
"Have you seen Adariel?" she asked. "I thought I saw her in the gardens, as if she'd come from the river, but she passed beneath the shadow of a tree and didn't come out on the other side."  
  
Haldir would have frowned, but he was already frowning. "She didn't?"  
  
The Undómiel shook her head. "I searched the gardens, asked Elladan and Elrohir as well as your brothers, Celebnoviel, and Aradalien, but no one has seen her. Not even Father."  
  
His frown deepened. She couldn't have...? No, Adariel wouldn't have run. Even the thought of her thinking of it was absurd and completely out of the norm for her. But then it occurred to him that she had run, but not for the reasons that anyone other than himself would know.  
  
Had she run because of him?  
  
He pushed the thought aside. "Was anyone with her?"  
  
"No," Arwen said faintly. She watched as Haldir's face tightened.  
  
"She'll be found soon," he said, but it was clear not 'even' to Arwen, but particularly to Arwen, that he was trying to reassure himself more than her.  
  



	13. Lost

**Sorry, the first time I posted this, the editor thingy didn't seem to work. I had everything corrected, I swear! Oh, well...**

**Anywho, I'm sorry it took me so long to post. Between school, work, the occasional marching band event, and shows, I've not had too much time to my name. I'll try to do better!**

_The Dark Star  
Part Thirteen  
Lost_

Upon opening her eyes, Adariel wondered if she truly had opened them. After a moment, however, her eyes adjusted to the pitch black darkness that surrounded her, and she took in her environment. Or, at least, she have her best attempt to do so through the pounding in her head that threatened to split the afflicted part in two.

_One side affect,_ she thought wryly, _of the sedative fusion: severe headache._ She frowned; perhaps her headache hadn't been caused by the fusion. Perhaps whoever had taken her - and she had a general idea of who it was - had bashed her head a few times. Whatever the cause, her head was enough to make her eyes prickle with tears of pain.

Her hands were bound tightly behind her back, and her ankles were tied as well. A gag - of what material, to her dismay, she could not discern - had been set in her mouth and tied at the back of her head, the cloth digging cruel at the corners of her mouth and pulling her lips into a repulsive parody of a grin.

Before her surroundings had truly registered, Adariel had thought herself in a cave, but after a moment it occurred to her that the tiny flickers of light above her were not imaginary or headache-induced, but were stars in truth. This also explained why she felt rough back, and not stone, digging into her back and chafing her arms and hands.

Her eyes slid closed against her splitting headache as she very, very gently leaned her head back and rested it against the tree trunk behind her. How, she couldn't help but wonder, was she going to get out of this? In the on potentially life-threatening situation she had been through in which she'd been this helpless, Nurardaion had come to her rescue. This time, however, she was alone.

How long had she been gone? Had anyone noticed? Did anyone care? She knew the answer to the last: Lord Elrond- Her father would care, as would Arwen. Elladan and Elrohir, as well. She smiled ever-so-slightly: Gil-luin would miss her.

Ironically, Adariel couldn't help but noticed how terribly inconvenient this whole affair was. She had things to do, and she most certainly could not do them while bound to a tree. It was unfortunate, really, that she could have been reconciling things between herself and Aradalien, or repaying Elrohir for throwing her into the water, or spending much-needed time with her horse. Gil-luin was the only sane being in existence, this she believed as a fact.

She could also have been deciding what to do about Haldir. However, she doubted that she would ever know what to do where the Marchwarden of Ló rien was involved. Indeed, she had well nigh resigned herself to a perpetual state of confusion where he was concerned.

The sound of footsteps coming toward her caused the thread of fear, which had laced through her with the realization of being tied and gagged, to intensify slightly, causing her to open her eyes and sit up a bit straighter. Glancing around, she could see the faint glowing of a light that approached from behind; within a moment, the light was suddenly in her sight and blinding her - she squeezed her eyes shut as paint shot through her already aching head. She heard something slightly on the heavy side hit the ground before the footsteps came closer and whoever it was knelt in front of her. This, of course, implied that she was to open her eyes.

If it was who she believed it to be, however, she very much wanted to keep her eyes closed.

"Come now, my lady," Dimalphion cajoled, confirming her fears. "Surely the light isn't that terrible."

He knew, she was sure, that it _was _'that terrible.' Thus, the only thing that kept her from telling him exactly what she thought of him - in terms that were not exactly polite, nor ladylike - was the gag. To substitute, she gave him the most despising, loathsome glare she could summon.

Of course, the fear coursing through her veins was not at all helpful. At the sound of his voice, a slow terror had begun to rise. Constantly her mind drifted to the last time she had been alone and defenseless in this Elf's presence…

He smirked at her. "Be careful how you treat me, Morelen," he said, reaching toward her. She automatically stiffened at this, but he only untied the gag. "Or perhaps you failed to notice your new companion?"

Adariel looked over his shoulder and laid eyes on an unconscious form. It took her a moment to realize what - who - it was, but when she did, all of the blood drained from her face, making her seem very, very pale.

_Noviel._

Six hours: the amount of time Celebnoviel had been missing.

Thirty-six hours: the amount of time Imladris had been in an uproar.

Two days: the amount of time Adariel had been missing.

Weeks untold: the amount of time Adariel had been driving him utterly mad.

When he had first met her, she had simply been a bit of an annoyance. Quickly that had faded - indeed, they had still been in Lothlórien at the time - and she became something that he could not seem to place. And, thanks to the incident that occurred just before she disappeared, he couldn't seem to place her now.

And the time between, during their friendship? After much consideration, Haldir had realized that he hadn't ever been able to _truly_ place her even then.

Thus, the reason behind his partial insanity was, in a limited number of ways, his own fault - this he would freely admit. But, in most ways, Adariel was to blame. He had no notion as to how, or why, but he did know that it centered at her.

She was, after all, the reason he was out, for the fourth time in that day alone, searching. More accurately, searching for her.

Adariel's disappearance had impacted everyone, though some harder than others. The way each person handled the situation varied, as well: her sister, Aradalien, had remained in her chambers since the day of Adariel's vanishing, and had not emerged for even a moment since. Arwen had taken to alternatively sitting in the library in a lost daze and pacing the gardens, generally avoiding all but her father. Elrond commanded the search effort with a vengeance; when his mind was not absorbed in searching, however, he had taken to brooding. Elladan and Elrohir each released their anxiety in much the same way as Haldir himself: searching nearly incessantly, and with a nearly unhealthy obsession.

It was Orophin's reaction, however, that puzzled him the most. He, like so many others, plunged himself heroically into the search efforts. He had also taken to brooding, something which was supremely unlike him. His wallowing seemed, however, to be anger-spurned - more specifically, anger at himself, as well as anger with Haldir.

He only focused on his brother's odd behavior when his mind wasn't preoccupied with other things. This, unfortunately, was a rare occurrence: the search, Adariel, and attempting to deduce why they whole affair bothered him as much as it did. She was a dear friend, and thus the assumption that Adariel's disappearance would disturb him was a natural one. But the degree to which his anxiety extended, however, made the emotion something akin to outright panic at times. That in itself was bothersome.

During times when the search slowed, such as when many of the searchers stopped in order to allow the next shift in, Haldir had few other things to think of than his brother's strange anger. Given that anything else was centered at Adariel, and that those thoughts had the tendency to give him a headache, he more often than not found himself attempting to focus on his brother's attitude. This, however, was not an easy thing to do, and more often than not he fell to brooding. He knew that Adariel would never have allowed him to brood, and this knowledge did nothing to help matters.

Orophin's behavior, however, was a safe topic to think of, so long as he could keep his mind on it - despite the irony of the statement. His brother had not outright said anything to him, as of yet, but Haldir often found himself expecting his brother to launch himself at him.

This was, indeed, highly confusing. Though, it was, admittedly, a bit less puzzling than Adariel, whether or not she was actually present. At the very least, it wasn't confusing in the same manner. Why would Orophin be so angry him? After reviewing all of his most recent encounters with his brother, Haldir could find nothing that would cause a particular irritancy with him.

He did not, however, spare the time to ask Orophin what was bothering him. In fact, he hardly spared any time at all. Elves did not need sustenance so much as Men, and he could hardly sleep even when he tried, and so the majority of his time went to the search.

He had, essentially, become obsessed. Perhaps, on some level, he had realized it. Truthfully, however, Haldir was doing his best to not realize it. He had enough crowding his mind without an obsession. So many things had happened within the last two days… Most notably, he had kissed the most vexing - and, admittedly, baffling - Elf-maiden in the history of the world. Twice!

As was previously established, Adariel could be found at the center of nearly everything in his life.

For the moment, at least.

None of this was helped by Orophin's obvious irritation with him. It was truly irksome, enough so that Haldir had nearly pulled his younger sibling aside many times in order to demand an answer to his questions in a slightly-less-than-gentle manner. He had, however, thus far managed to quell the urge to bash his brother upside the head with a rather thick tree branch. In fact, he thoroughly ignored his irritation.

For he had realized part of the problem: emotions. He had let them get in the way over the past few weeks, something he had always strictly avoided before. Consequently, it was only logical that the chaos in his mind could at least partially be attributed to a sudden increase in visible emotion. Something which was directly linked to Adariel.

It always came back to _her_!

"Good evening, Marchwarden."

Haldir looked up to find Lord Elrond watching him impassively. The torrent that was his thoughts carefully tucked away, Haldir bowed respectfully as Elrond came forward. "Walk with me for a moment?"

"Of course," Haldir said quietly, falling instep beside the Lord of Rivendell.

There was silence for several moments before Elrond said, "There is something I must disclose to you that requires the utmost secrecy for the time being."

"'Twould be a shame, should something happen to her thanks to your lack of respect toward me, would it not?"

Adariel found that she was shaking, and that, while it was primarily caused by fear for her friend, it was not caused only by fear. "Leave her be," she said, her voice quiet and pitched lowly. "You posses that which you've sought, don't bring the innocent into the debate."

"Think logically, I beg you," he taunted, leering at her unbearably. "You involved the uninvolved, did you not?"

_"What?"_

"The marchwarden!" he snarled, suddenly violent. "_You _brought him here. You involved him!"

"I had no choice in the matter. He felt the need to defend me, and did so, and not by my word nor leave," Adariel retorted. She did not think it wise to add that she had hardly refused his help.

"And I am to trust this?"

"Do you truly think that I would lie to you when another's life was at stake?"

He looked at her, his gaze assessing, and she wanted to hide away. "No, I suppose not."

"You acknowledge it," she said, "and so you admit that your involvement of an innocent party was out of line."

"I never said this."

"You didn't have to." She leaned back onto the tree. "You have me. Do what you will. But do not involved anyone else."

He tilted his head. "This is true. Very well, I shall return her." He could not, of course, concede to her wishes entirely, and so added, "When I see fit." He walked forward, bearing a cloth. "Good night once more, my lady."

Realizing what was about to occur, Adariel pressed herself into the tree almost viciously. But there was no escaping Dimalphion, and soon she was unconscious once more.

"A secrecy which I, of course, shall maintain."

Elrond drew a deep breath, and then said, "I have more of an interest in the search than you may believe me to have. A very personal interest."

"If I may be so bold, I'm hardly surprised," Haldir admitted. "Lady Adariel often referred to you as a second father."

The Elf-lord's smile was slightly bitter. "Indeed? I hadn't realized. My concern, however, lies deeper than that. You see…" It was here that Elrond hesitated, and Haldir glanced at him, unsettled by his companion's hesitation; the lord Elrond was always sure of himself. A faltering moment was rare indeed. "I _am _her father."

Perhaps Haldir should have been shocked. In truth, however, he couldn't summon any real reaction: he was still absorbing the words. Fortunately, however, Elrond did not expect a reply.

"I am telling you this because I have seen the dedication which you have shown her as of late," he continued as Haldir struggled to keep up. "My own sons already know, and thus my request does not need to be voice to them. I wish I could tell them all, if only because that would result in a fiercer search. But I must respect Adariel's wishes. She asked for time, and I will give her time. But I cannot do nothing." Suddenly Elrond stopped and turned to face him. "Bring her back to me, Marchwarden," he said quietly. "Find my daughter."

Elrond was Adariel's father. _Elrond_. Adariel was, essentially, the Elven equivalent to a princess. The Undómiel and the Morelen. The Evenstar and the Darkstar. Adariel was Elrond's daughter.

_Why had she never told him?_

None of his thoughts, of course, were apparent when he nodded. Nor when he said, "I will find her."

Once again, pain was the first thing Adariel recognized when she awoke. Her head, however, was not the afflicted part: now it was her wrists. And shoulders. The entirety of both arms, for that matter. The next thing she realized was that her feet were not on solid ground. Adariel opened her eyes.

It was dawn, as the grayish-pinkish light indicated. The gag had been replaced, but her feet were untied. Her hands, however, were bound above her head, the rope looped over a branch, and her feet hung in open air.

_She had been strung up in a tree._ Trust Dimalphion to come up with such an idea.

The notion was so utterly ridiculous, despite its truth, that she began to giggle as she looked down, past a couple of branches, to the ground below. Her giggle grew to a laugh, and she was in hysterics by the time she realized that she was crying at the same time.

Adariel struggled to regain herself. She had to get out of that tree. There was simply no other option. After a careful survey of the ground, she knew that Noviel was gone, as was Dimalphion. She knew that she had to try now, or she would never have the opportunity again. She looked around, attempting to find something to help her.

There was a blade on the ground, its blade stuck into the ground so that it stood upright. That would have been a wonderful tool, should she have been able to get a hold of it. Unfortunately, it was roughly fifteen feet below her, and there was little else - she would have to rely on her own strength and wits to get out.

_Then there isn't much hope in my situation, is there? _she thought bitterly. After a swift review of her possible options, Adariel made her first move by swinging her legs up and, as soon as she had gained enough momentum, swung her legs up around the branch. She clenched her eyes shut as her arms screamed, but quickly forced herself back into action.

Adariel bit her lip as she slowly inched her way down the branch, toward the end of it. When she felt she was close enough, she did her best to grip the branch as she swung her legs out and hooked them over a nearby branch. The movement made something crack loudly, and she gasped softly and closed her eyes, waiting for the fall to come, or for someone to hear. Nothing fell, and no one came, friend nor foe, and so she breathed again.

Resting all of her weight on her knees, which were draped across another branch, Adariel struggled to keep her legs in place as she inched her bound wrists toward the end of the branch. The more she advanced, the harder it became, and soon she was stretched nearly as far as she could stretch, biting her lip fiercely as she fought to keep inching her hands forward.

Then came another snap, a violent burst of fear, and suddenly the branch her hands were looped around broke, and her torso fell. The branch holding her legs also snapped, unable to hold the sudden strain of her full weight, and she plummeted downward. The fall was quick - she hardly felt the branches swipe viciously at her until she hit the ground. But when she did, two things happened: first, she landed hard on her ankle, and she immediately collapsed to the ground, and second, she realized that the tree branches had done much more than slow her fall. She bore several scratches, but two were actual gashes. One, a small wound, was on her left side, just below her ribcage. The second was on her right arm, but it was much more than a small wound: a huge gash, half an inch deep and an inch wide, ran from her elbow to her wrist on the underside of her arm.

Adariel hissed with pain, pressing her arm tightly to her chest in a desperate attempt to make the pain go away. After a moment of coping with the sudden onslaught of wounds and the extreme discomfort they brought, she pushed herself upright and crawled over to where the blade was standing out from the ground. She swiped at it with her left hand and, after knocking it over, used it to cut her bonds. She then wrangled with them, and after much twisting and turning of the wrists, she managed to get the ropes off.

Her wrists were raw, and Adariel wrinkled her nose at the tender, blood-stained skin that her limbs had become. She looked at the sword - she should have taken it with her, for protection. However, given that moving too quickly made the world spin, she doubted that she would help herself much, even with the blade, should she be attacked. Instead, she used the blade to cut a strip of her skirt away, and she wrapped it around her arm as best she could, given that she only had one hand. Then she began the struggled to stand.

After three attempts, Adariel stood, braced on one of the branches that had fallen with her, and began to limp forward. Her sense of direction was poor compared to most Elves, but she assumed that she was heading eastward.

For, after much deliberation, performed as she struggled to stand, she had decided that heading directly for Rivendell would not be wise. Dimalphion would expect that, for one, and for another, she would lead him away from her loved ones if she moved away from the Dell. Eventually she would double back and return home, but for now, she thought it safest for all involved if she stayed away.

Adariel had no idea how long she walked before her ankle gave out, sending her crashing once more to the ground. She had already fallen once - she assumed from blood loss, an ironic thing for and Elf. At any rate, this time when she fell, she felt no need nor hurry to struggle back to her feet and press on. She was tired, hungry, and beginning to feel ill.

Her bandage had long since lost its ability to stay in place without help - Adariel was constantly pulling it tighter about her arm, which more often than not succeeded only in sending darts of pain throughout her entire body. She needed… something. Rest. That was what she required. Roughly two years' worth would have been wonderful.

She finally gained enough sense, however, to realize that she could never rest for long out in the open. So she crawled over to a nearby patch of bushes and curled up into a small ball underneath them, hiding herself well before she let her eyes slide close.


	14. Enduring the Fire

A/N: Okay, a few things before we get started. All right, all right, a _lot_ of things before we get started...

1. I haven't been active for several reasons:

A) Writer's block

B) Migraines and tension headaches that lasted for weeks on end struck very quickly after the writer's block left. I missed several days of school because of those headaches, and almost had to go in for a CAT scan to make sure everything was okay

C) I felt that I couldn't give my all to the story, so I wanted to get everything else out of my system in order to come back to my true love (this is my first epic fic, I'd say it's my true love) with a pure mind

D) Two words: crunch time. As soon as I found the imagination/relaxation/peace of mind to write, school kicked into high gear, and I had four big projects all due by the same date. I went without sleep for two nights in a row to get those stupid things done, grrr…

2. This is extremely short. So short that it literally pains me to post it. But due to increasing (and rather impatient demand), I decided to punch myself through and post it anyway.

Now, those two things said, I have a couple of things to add regarding posts:

1. I will do my _very best _to post as often as I can. But we have to keep in mind that I won't have very much time: I'll have a full-time babysitting job this summer, and several of my weekends are already dedicated, because three of my best friends graduated this year, and we've decided that we all need to spend as much time together as we can before they have to go.

2. Knowing that, please be patient with me. I know I've already made a lot of demands, and I'm really sorry, but the way things have been going lately, life is hectic at best. Once things calm down, I'm hoping to sit down and punch out several chapters of all my current posted fics, and a few of my unposted ones. Please, please bear with me here, and I promise that I'll do my best to make it worth the wait.

Whew! That was a lot. Now, to tide things over, I have this mini-chapter for you. I can't stand it, mainly because it's WAAAY too short, but we've got to make compromises.

Another thing: there are memories involved in this chapter, and since my little symbol thingys won't work, I'm just going to italicize the memories. So the big chunks of italicized stuff are memories, 'kay?

Thanks for reading all that crap, and I hope this sorta-kinda makes up for my lack in updates... Ta!

..ooOOoo..

The Darkstar  
Part Fourteen, Segment I  
Enduring the Fire

Her sleep was not restful, nor was it true sleep. When she finally surrendered and struggled to her knees, she felt worse than she had when she began, and even the slightest movement sent a small wave of nausea to roll through her stomach. She knew it would only get worse.  
She struggled to her feet once more, all of her weight on the stick. Not all of her sense, however, had left her, at least not entirely, and she surveyed the area for any obvious signs that she'd left, such as blood stains. There were some, and she nudged the leaves around until the blood was hidden away and scattered.

Adariel looked down at her right arm, surveying the blood-soaked fabric that had once been a part of her dress. The material was stiff with dried blood towards the outside of the wound and the area surrounding it, and closer to the center was damp, proof that she was still bleeding. Through the mush that her brain had become, she realized that the wound hadn't been cleaned, and that it would need to be. The odds that the injury was already infected were high, but at least she could prevent it from worsening.

Slowly, carefully, she began to make her way further east. Surely there was a stream or something up ahead, it would only be a matter of time before she found it. _Yes, but how much time? _a traitorous part of her mind asked, but she did her best to ignore the thought.

A sigh escaped her as she hobbled through the trees and undergrowth. _So this is how an elderly human woman feels, _she thought idly. _I wonder if they begin feeling like this soon before they die, or if they feel like this for a long time before death._

Upon further consideration, Adariel decided that this was not at all a cheerful thought, and so she resolved to think of something else, anything but her situation and her physical condition. Her mind, aggravating thing that it was, first fell to Haldir - she resolved not to contemplate on him, as well, after she spared him one thought: _Stupid Marchwarden. _

Then her mind moved to the drama surrounding her lineage, and the fact that her surprise at the revelation had not been very great. Why had it not shocked her to the core? Perhaps it was that she always felt a bit more welcome in Elrond's home than her own. She frowned slightly. That was certainly part of it. In fact, the first time she had realized that she felt this way, she had wished with all her might to be Celebrían and Elrond's child. The occasion had been burnt into her memory.

_"Adariel! That isn't how it goes!" Aradalien cried, stomping her foot in the dirt._

_Adariel sighed recognizing the beginnings of another fight. "Yes, it is, Aradalien," she said patiently. "The daughter must do as the mother says, not the other way around. I'm the mother, remember?"_

_"So?" Aradalien screeched, and Adariel began to stand. "Why can't you just go swimming, like I told you to!"_

_"Because I am the mother," she reminded her sister, wishing that Aradalien would stop making up her own rules. "You wanted to be the little girl, remember? You wouldn't let me be the little girl."_

_"So?" she shrieked again. "My Mama would go swimming for me!"_

_"You mean our mother?"_

_"No! She's my mama, not yours, and you're horrible at playing this game!"_

_That comment was wounding, one of the worst Aradalien had ever said to her. Adariel blinked at her, tears welling in her eyes, then jumped up and started running for home. Terrified of being tattled on, Aradalien ran after her, shrieking for her twin to stop and come back._

_"Mother!" Adariel cried, racing into their home, her sister in hot pursuit. "Mother, you're-"_

_"Mama, she won't play the game properly!" Aradalien interjected, turning the tables on her sister in an instant._

_Adariel knew, without a doubt, that her chances had been dashed. Now Mother would only know Aradalien's side of the story, and Adariel would be in trouble. Avarlammeniel knelt before Aradalien, straightening the girl's dress. "How so, Aradalien?"_

_"She's the daughter, and she's supposed to do what I say, but she keeps bossing me instead. She keeps making up her own rules."_

_Adariel nearly cried in relief. That wasn't at all what she wanted to talk about! The fact that her sister had just told one of the most obtuse lies she'd ever uttered in her life mattered not at all to Adariel. "No, Mother, that's not at all why-"_

_"Is this true, Morelen?" Avarlammeniel asked severely, eyeing Adariel with a suspicious eye._

_"No, but-"_

_"Are you telling me that Aradalien is lying?"_

_What was she to say? The truth would be to say, "Yes, Aradalien is lying, Mother." But Adariel doubted that her mother would believe her, because Mother never believed her when Aradalien was involved. But that wasn't the issue Adariel had in mind. She bit her lips, and settled for a quick outburst of the truth before she moved on to her question._

_"Yes, but I want to know if-"_

_Her mother's face was tight and angry. "Do not speak, child, for you will not like the consequences."_

_Adariel shut her mouth quickly._

_"Aradalien, go wait for me outside. I will speak with you in a moment."_

_Her twin looked as if she might have regretted the blatant lie, but didn't dare correct herself, for fear of upsetting their mother. Aradalien sulked out of the house, watching her sister over her shoulder. Adariel, however, kept her eyes glued to the ground._

_Once Aradalien was safely out of earshot, Avarlammeniel said caustically, "Speak now, for my patience to hear you may not endure."_

_Adariel ran her tongue over her lips nervously and scrubbed her hands on her skirt. "I only wanted to know if you're my mother, too," she said, shifting slightly from foot to foot._

_Avarlammeniel's face crumpled with sadness for an instant, but then suddenly darkened. "No," the she-Elf said, clearly furious. "No. Now leave."_

_"But Mother-"_

"_Leave!_"

_Adariel stumbled back a step, then, with tears in her eyes, whirled around a flew out the door._

_"Adariel, wait!" Aradalien cried, but the Morelen did not stop, did not even acknowledge that her sister was there. She ran straight to Lord Elrond's home and, upon finding the Lady of Rivendell reading out on a balcony, flung herself at Celebrían, sobbing with her whole being._

_The wonderful thing of it was, Celebrían never once questioned the impetus behind Adariel's tears. She didn't demand reasons, or that Adariel cease her crying, only held her until the tears finally slowed and stopped, and then held her a bit more._

_"Please don't tell Father," Adariel begged, her voice thick with tears and muffled by Celebrían's gown. "I don't want to tell him what Mother said. He was so upset last time."_

_"Last time?"_

_"Yes," she explained, smearing her sleeve across her eyes as she straightened. "The last time Mother said that I wasn't her daughter. Last time, Father told me that she was just grumpy because Nurar had been out on boarder duty again, but Nurar was at the archery ranges this time."_

_Celebrían was silent for a moment as she gently pushed Adariel's arm away and began to tenderly wipe the tears away, using a soft linen handkerchief rather than her sleeve. "I'll not tell Nimrómen." The Lady of Rivendell cuddled Adariel to her, rubbing her hand soothingly along the girl's back, and Adariel sniffled as she clung to Celebrían's dress. "You'll stay here tonight, I think," Celebrían said, smoothing Adariel's dark hair away from her face. Adariel nodded, feeling truly loved for the first time in a very long time._

Yes, that was the first time she had truly wished to be Elrond and Celebrían's daughter. The irony of it was that she'd been their child all along. How many could claim that their wish had been real their whole life? The numbers were few, she was sure.

She paused and leaned against a nearby tree, regaining her bearings: the dizziness was increasing. Adariel peered around her, taking in her surroundings. The sun was shining, warm against her skin, but not hot, shimmering down through the leaves and giving the surrounding woods a glowing appearance. It was very beautiful, the sort of day she would have spent riding Gil-luin or reading by the river.

Instead she was limping through the woods, in fear of her life.

Adariel sighed as she resumed her walking. Really, all she wanted was a quiet life with her healing, her books, and her loved ones. She knew of some who wanted adventure, great journeys or tales of valiance and grandeur, but she was certainly not one of them. She wanted no drama.

And yet, that was exactly what her life was, as of late. One large, dramatic event. Her lineage had been completely realigned, her livelihood destroyed, her one-time sister had come to hate her, and she'd managed to… become fond of… one of the most opaque Elves she'd ever met.

"You needn't play hero."

"It is my duty, my lady."

"Hmm, is that so, Marchwarden?"

"It is so."

Adariel sighed and shook her head, but then the world spun at the small movement as her head roared, and she stilled instantly as her hand flew out to steady herself. Curse her loss of blood! Perhaps she needed some sort of sustenance. This was a very probable possibility, but unfortunately, it was something she was distinctly unable to do. Her lack of weapons, speed, strength, and altogether clarity made the process of gathering any sort of food, vegetation or otherwise, a very dangerous and difficult business.

She struggled on, forcing herself not to think of her extremely deplorable condition and even allowing herself to think of the Marchwarden rather than her wounds and hunger and illness.

**..ooOOoo..**


End file.
